Staying Up All Night at Bennu Coffee

Review of an off-campus 24-hour coffee lounge

It is 2 a.m., you have a test in the morning that will ultimately determine your final grade and Perry-Castañeda Library has just kicked you out. Where do you go next? Back to your dorm where your roommate is sleeping and likely to yell at you for keeping the lights on? Located just east of campus is a small shop that is the solution to this dilemma: Bennu 24 Hour Coffee Lounge.

“We wanted to create a different kind of coffee bar. A lounge where it felt like you were in someone’s living room instead of just another business, ” the Bennu Coffee Web site said on its About section. Bennu Coffee is the perfect blend of relaxed sitting room and cyber café.

Bennu Coffee supplies free wi-fi for customers. Every table has access to an outlet, some of which are hanging from the ceiling. There are big tables sitting four to five people for big study groups, small tables for the solo studiers, and plenty of big, comfy couches with board games for those who just come to hang out and relax. Bennu Coffee has a great environment, and for once in your life you can spend hours working on homework and not even notice.

Besides the appeal of the environment, Bennu Coffee also has an outstanding variety of items on their menu. All of their coffee is Fair Trade Certified. For more information about what that entails, click here. The menu has all the normal items, such as espresso, latte, cappuccino and a variety of tea, but the Gourmet Mochas are the highlight of every visit. Each drink is named after a classic novel that in some way relates to the contents of the drink. For example, the Don Quixote is an Azteco D’Oro spiced chocolate mocha topped with whipped cream and sprinkled with Mexican spiced powder. My personal favorite is the Moby Dick, a very yummy white chocolate mocha finished with whipped cream. Did I mention their whipped cream is homemade?

In addition to their coffee beverages, Bennu Coffee also sells appetizing food from local suppliers, including breakfast tacos from Torchy’s Tacos (served from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. only), pizza slices from Hoboken Pies, pastries from Russell’s Bakery and salads from Fricano’s.

If you need a fun, studious environment to keep up with your schoolwork in, give Bennu 24 Hour Coffee Lounge a try.

Bennu Coffee is located at 2001 E Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Austin, TX 78702.