As you’ve no doubt noticed by now, our Behind the Sign stories have an unabashedly geocentric bias. It’s hard not to be a regional chauvinist when you live in the Skagit Valley.

But part of what puts the “magic” in the Magic Skagit is the fact that we are a gateway to so many places that are destination venues in their own right. Drive two hours in any direction from downtown Mount Vernon and you’re going to arrive at some inspiring destinations. West to east from Whidbey Island to the Cascades, south to north from Seattle to Vancouver B.C., and you have before you an embarrassment of scenic and cultural riches for no more than the cost of a full tank of gas and a clean windshield. Sometimes you just want to say, “Pinch me…I’m dreaming.”

I’m kind of a country boy at heart, but having been born and raised in the city I still cop to the thrill of an urban landscape and Big City vibe. Which is why I was delighted last week to accept our daughter’s invitation to join her and her homeschool students, ages 8 to 3 (including our grandsons), on a field trip to the Woodland Park Zoo.

As fate would have it, however, my wife and I received a call the night before our planned outing from Skagit Regional Health informing us that our names had come up for a first round of COVID-19 vaccine injections, and that we should show up the following morning to receive them. Being the most significant lottery I’ve participated in since the Vietnam War, I felt we had no choice but to let our daughter know that we’d arriving late for our zoo date.

Following a curtailed zoo adventure with our daughter and her excited homeschool kiddos, my wife and I decided a celebration was in order — so we headed to Seattle’s Capitol Hill for a meal at Six Arms, a McMenamins brew pub at the corner of Pike and Melrose. If you’ve never been to a McMenamins establishment, let me just say that you’re missing out on a uniquely Pacific Northwest experience…and leave it at that.

Fondly recalling Led Zeppelin’s first album, I ordered a Communication Breakdown burger: a six-ounce all-natural beef patty with cheddar and grilled onions, mushrooms, and bell peppers, paired with a pint of hoppy red ale (brewed on premises). My wife opted for the fish & chips and a blackberry cider. Throwing caution to the wind (because hey, we’d been vaccinated), we split a black & tan brownie. Straight out of the oven and oozing melted chocolate, topped with a vanilla bean ice cream and “caram-ale” sauce, the mere sight of it was enough to make one positively bilious. If I had been condemned to hang that night, I would have considered this an appropriate last meal.

A word about the Six Arms. Great art, plumbing sculptures and music are hallmarks of the pub, but its most alluring feature may be the floor-to-ceiling windows that line its walls. Just on the edge of downtown, Six Arms’ picture windows are ideally suited for an afternoon of happy-hour people watching. While they nicely frame one of Seattle’s hippest neighborhoods, that was not their intended purpose. The building was once an auto dealership — back when the neighborhood was evolving from residential to the Emerald City’s “auto row” — and the large panes of glass were actually designed for people to peer in rather than out.

Following our meal, we waddled across the street to a place I had been curious about since our first visit to the Six Arms months ago: the Starbucks Reserve Roastery. In the wake of the social justice demonstrations that rocked the Capitol Hill neighborhood last year, the building had been boarded up at the time.

Let’s stop right here to calibrate our expectations. At this point in the 21st Century, who hasn’t been to a Starbucks? To be quite honest, much as they can be relied upon for a consistent cup of coffee bean-infused hot water, it’s not my go-to source for a cup of joe. But to compare the venue at the corner of Pike and Melrose to the humble Starbucks tucked into your local supermarket does not begin to do justice to what awaits you when you walk through the massive wooden door.

Starbucks corporation describes its Capitol Hill reserve roastery as, and I quote, “…an immersive and dramatic expression of our passion for coffee, located just nine blocks from our original Starbucks Pike Place store.” In an age of “truthful hyperbole,” I would actually call this description an understatement. What might be more accurate, if not more fanciful, would be to describe it as a Disneyland for coffee fanatics.

The layout of the roastery includes a main coffee bar, featuring the usual espresso drinks as well as seasonal coffees (displayed on a constantly clacking “solari board”) such as a whiskey barrel-aged Guatemala and a selection of cold brews. How does a nitro molé mocha strike your fancy? And no…I’m not making this up, friends. God, I love the city!

There’s also a “scooping bar” where a “Coffee Master” will cheerfully help you choose a Starbucks Reserve coffee to bag and take home. And then there’s the “Mixology Bar” featuring a custom-designed cold brew system. Add the spirit of your choice to your coffee and you just might meet yourself coming and going. Last, but certainly not least, there’s “Princi,” a source of pastries, breads, and “artisanal pizzas” from a formidable set of ovens. I left with with a killer round of sourdough and some flaky almond and hazelnut chocolate pastries for Saturday breakfast.

Food and drink aside, the most impressive part of the roastery is where the roasting actually takes place, courtesy of a custom Probat P-25 roaster, for you coffee gear heads that get off on this sort of detail. And did I mention that there is also a “coffee library” that offers more than 200 titles on coffee and a mezzanine from which to view the entire roasting operation?

Like I said, I’m kind of a country boy at heart. But the question I have to ask myself, in spite of the god-awful Seattle traffic, is “how are you gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen the Starbucks Reserve Roastery?” I think I’ve got a few more Communications Breakdown burgers in my future before I can fully answer that.