Woods Coffee King St

King St was the first Woods in Bellingham, and it is deliberately the least designed of the six. No fireplace, no upstairs room, no view. What it has instead is a drive up window with enough room to take a truck and trailer, which is a real and rare thing, and almost nowhere else in Bellingham coffee can make the same offer.

It opens at 5am on weekdays, built around the commute off I-5, and it connects through an inside door from the King Street Shell. That combination tells you exactly who it is for: people starting work early, people towing something, and people who want to be moving again immediately.

Being the original store also gives it a place in the company's history. Woods started in Lynden in 2002, founded by Wes and Diane Herman and their four children out of a homeschool business plan, and King St is where the chain first reached the city it is now most associated with.

The coffee is roasted by the company itself and the pastries are baked in house, same as the other five, so the plainness is about the building rather than about what is in the cup. If you are hauling a trailer and need coffee before daylight, this is the only honest answer on the list.