Buffables Cafe

Buffables is a little different. It is a health cafe that happens to serve coffee, rather than a coffee shop that happens to have healthy food. The whole place is built around getting better stuff into your body without making it miserable. Zero seed oils. Zero refined sugar. No fillers or preservatives. The slogan is "Big Flavor, Bigger Gains." You get the drift.

I met Craig, one of the brothers behind Buffables, and you can tell there is a lot of thought behind what they are building. Craig and his brother Grant designed the space and built the brand around making healthy food something you could actually visit every day. The menu was also developed with Chef Sandro Falbo, executive chef at Kimpton Mas Olas Resort in Mexico. So there is some serious food knowledge behind this cafe.

And the space definitely looks the part. As you pull up, the bright orange trim and matching signage stand out against the clean white stucco exterior. Inside, everything is clean and modern with orange accents everywhere and polished concrete floors. It feels like a gym got together with a modern cafe and decided to make something a little more interesting.

The coffee comes from Push Pull in Portland, Oregon. The espresso is a medium dark blend made from two parts Colombia and one part Honduras. I ordered a medium latte and found myself wishing for a little more espresso relative to the milk. That is an easy thing to solve here because the smaller size also gets a double shot. If you like a stronger latte, I would go small. The espresso has plenty going on and the smaller size will allow those chocolate and hazelnut notes come through a little more.

But the drink that really surprised me was the Coco Nut Colostrum Latte. This is probably the drink that best captures what Buffables is trying to do. It tastes healthy without tasting like you are drinking something because you are supposed to. There is chocolate and coffee without the syrupy sweetness. It is not bitter and it does not have that powdery quality I expected from a colostrum drink. It just works.

And then there is the packaging. The cold version comes in a clear canned cup with a professionally sealed soda style top. It looks great and makes taking the drink with you ridiculously easy.

Buffables feels like one of those places that knows exactly who it wants to serve. If you are trying to eat better, get more protein and still enjoy going out for a cafe drink, this makes a lot of sense. I am always happy to see a place trying to make healthy food actually enjoyable and Craig and Grant seem to have put a lot of thought into making that happen.

Come for the healthy food. Stay for the Coco-Nut Colostrum Latte.