Having come this far into my first semester at Penn State, I decided it was time for me to branch out my blog posts a little bit. Broadening my range of study locations from simply on campus to the surrounding downtown area too provides all of you reading my blog with more varied study spots (and also ones that will be open on the weekends…. unlike most university buildings).
That being said, my study spot for this week is Saint’s Cafe, a cute little hole-in-the-wall cafe downtown between Target and Panera. I went to Saint’s for the first time the Sunday everyone was returning to State College from Thanksgiving Break. I arrived around 9:30am and was pleasantly surprised with a cute cafe crammed full of different seating areas ranging from small tables at a bench to a row of window-seats to a long raised table in the back of the cafe.
At the time I arrived, there were only a small handful of people there,
mainly what appeared to be grad students and adults who actually live in State College, however as time progressed the Cafe gradually filled to near-maximum capacity around 10:30-11:00am. This created a really home-y atmosphere with everyone enjoying the coffee and either chatting or doing work as muted Christmas music played in the back.
Saint’s is not the biggest cafe, so I would recommend going in the morning to avoid most of the crowd. That being said, I have never experienced it during a “school day” so it may have just been crowded since it was the weekend.
Overall, I really enjoyed Saint’s, it reminded me of small cafe I go to in my hometown all the time. And, it seems like the rest of the population of State College also enjoys Saint’s, too (as evidenced by the high Yelp rating and endless comments praising it). I definitely recommend going here if you enjoy studying at coffee shops or having a different type of coffee than the Starbucks served everywhere on campus.
The only downside to Saint’s was a lack of electrical outlets near a majority of the tables. Since it the cafe is so packed full of seating, only the seats on the wall have outlet access and some of the tables tend to be on the smaller size too, only able to fit a laptop and little else.
No doubt, Saint’s is going to become one of my go-to spots on weekends when I need to sit quietly, sip some coffee, and steadily work on material.