Common Grounds

Chapel Hill's Caffe Driade brings all other cafés down to comparable lameness levels with more corporate climes. There's no sign of puffy couches, cliché jazz music or cheesy Starbucks lingo. "Short skinny decaf iced latte with cinnamon on top" is just not part of the culture. Set against the woods, the café cherishes outdoor space perhaps more than its interior-the majority of the seating is out on the heated patio and the store's periphery. More importantly, Caffe Driade's coffee and pastries are excellent, and teas and cigars (perfect for the porch) are also sold. The art on the walls is genuine and disturbing, which melds well with the store's post-modern interior aesthetic. Caffe Driade offers the customer both privacy and open space-an alien concept to the boring and cluttered spaces of most other coffee shops.