Victor Allen's Coffee

In a word: Madison's coffee chain is a little generic.

The specs: #0710  
Address, hours & details via Isthmus; reviews at Madison Espresso, Isthmus, Dane 101, Yelp; listing at Eat Drink Madison; official web site, Facebook,

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Doug ate the chocolate donut with a coffee-and-whipped-cream drink.
JM ate the cinnamon roll and chocolate donut with a lemonade.
Nichole ate the apple fritter with a cappuccino.
Ross ate the cranberry and lemon scones with a soda.
Samantha ate the chocolate croissant with a latte.
The bill was about $6/person, plus tip.
Nichole and Samantha gave Victor Allen's Coffee a B+; Ross gave Victor Allen's Coffee a B-; JM gave Victor Allen's Coffee a C (see our grading rubric).

The Victor Allen's on Whitney (by Cancun and Seafood Center) has a hotel lobby feel, with mass-produced posters and paper cups. This Saturday morning, service was quick, friendly and accurate. There was a decent-sized crowd, about half clatsches and half solo folks on laptops.

We got an assortment of drinks and Oakhouse Bakery pastries.

The cinnamon roll was thick and light on the cinnamon. The apple fritter was pretty far from Greenbush's, with not many apple pieces. The donuts were pretty good, though the chocolate did have an aftertaste. And the scones were okay (the lemon was particularly bright) but nothing spectacular.

As for coffee drinks, the latte had more foam than the cappuccino. Both had maybe a little less bold espresso than Sam and Nichole would have liked.

Doug, ever the laconic one, balked from giving a grade and just said "It's a good coffee shop." We can't disagree, but we wish we'd been able to lead our crew to Victory.