Photos by Amelia Goe
Location and Hours:
Roosevelt location
(602) 354-8150
1020 North 1st Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85003
Monday–Friday 6 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Saturday–Sunday 7 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Civic Space Park location
(602) 253-6912
424 North Central Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85004
Monday–Thursday 7 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Friday 7 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturday–Sunday Closed
Star Rating (0 – 4): ★★½
Price Range: .95 – $8
Student Discount: none
Recommended: Gluten-free peanut butter
chocolate chip cookies, tuna melt,
any loose leaf tea
Fair Trade Cafe is a coffee shop with caring owners and a mission to feed the community with organic food and locally roasted coffee.
The downtown community is spoiled with the abundance of coffee shops in the area. Fair Trade has two downtown locations — one in Civic Space Park that is crawling with college kids and another at Roosevelt Street and First Avenue, which is more popular with a diverse crowd.
Unlike a lot of coffee shops, you won’t find prepackaged foods at Fair Trade. The food is made fresh, pastries aren’t soggy or stale and the Roosevelt location even sells ice cream.
If you’re looking for a gourmet dining experience, you won’t find it here either. But there are plenty of gems that aren’t found many places elsewhere downtown, such as the gluten-free peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.
The paninis ($5.00 – $7.00) are decent. The bread is certainly delicious, but not the crunchy toast found in a traditional panini. If I’m in need of a quick bite after class, you’ll most likely find me getting the tuna melt. It’s not too dry or heavy with mayonnaise and it has a great taste combination with the artisan bread.
When it comes to the coffee, tea and other beverage options, Fair Trade does a great job of offering quality products for inexpensive prices, which is often hard to find. While I find the coffee to be a bit bitter, the Americano is strong and rich. The teas are what I love the most. All of Fair Trade’s teas ($1.75) are looseleaf, organic and fair trade (as the name would suggest). The mint chocolate tea is by far my favorite. The Italian sodas are pretty great as well, but I wouldn’t necessarily come to Fair Trade with that drink order in mind.
Sunday brunch is served at the Roosevelt location from 8:30 a.m. to noon and they serve up plenty of traditional brunch dishes. The twice-baked challah french toast is a must.
Now let’s talk about whether Fair Trade makes a good spot for working. Coffee shop owners should realize that a great cafe has an atmosphere made for conversing, eating and working. Going off that checklist, I’d say the Roosevelt location makes for a better overall cafe between the two.
While the Civic Space Park location is closer to the ASU campus, there is a lack of outlets to plug in electronic devices. One outlet in particular happens to be above the windows, meaning customers must stand on the bench to plug in their various chargers. I’m not the tallest girl in town, so I always have someone help me. This is not necessarily something I normally think to worry about when going to work at a coffee shop.
That being said, both locations play great music and sometimes ask their customers what kind of music they want. I’ve had the honor to choose what Pandora station to play — talk about customer involvement.
There are also community-organized events at both locations, many including live music or educational speakers. The Roosevelt location has even held movie screenings.
Ultimately, if you want friendly service, healthy menu options and something simple then Fair Trade is probably the cafe for you.
Contact reporter at angoe@asu.edu
