Espression Lavazza

Located just two blocks from the Texas State Capital on Congress, I’ve been to Lavazza several times and there’s nothing I haven’t tried that I wouldn’t get again!
Their coffee is freshly brewed, and they offer a many options when it comes to expresso drinks and smoothies. Very rich, very tasty, molto delizioso!
Their pastries are also to die for! They offer various delicious quiche, bagels, croissants, muffins, cookies, and bread loafs!
Quite often I come for lunch, and most days they offer lunch specials not on their menu. Everything I’ve tried here-​salads, paninis, ciabatta sandwiches, pizza– it’s all been wonderful!
The food does is a bit pricy, especially for the small portions, but everything is fresh and never disappoints! The menu is also quite small, but they are known for their coffee.
They also offer around 6 gelato flavors, and who doesn’t love gelato?!
Important note: They offer free wifi!

Looks pretty but I am unsure of the hygiene of the place. I recently too a liking to the lunch special here, which is a great deal for downtown. However, today my tea was loaded with grinds which makes for very unpleasant drinking. It gets way worse…2 bites into my cookie, I bit into a looped coarse hair that felt like fishing line baked deep into it. This hair had to be 10 inches long or more and weaved throughout the cookie. Never would I think I would be happy to see that the hair was long… as it was so coarse it could have been worse. Now I just need to cut off my tongue, have my teeth pulled, and fumigate my mouth! Buyer beware! Get some hair nets if you are going to expand your coffee shop into the world of food prep! To top it off, when I brought it back to show them, they did not seem surprised nor did they offer any solutions or even a sincere apology.

Delicious sandwiches and paninis. Met some friends after a parade downtown and happened upon this gem. Everyone enjoyed their meals, all of which were served hot and fresh with good portion size. Also had a caffe mocha, medium size was a generous serving. I will definitely come back to try more plates.

I been coming here for a few weeks to get some work done and I absolutely love the coffee. Lavazza is my favorite brand and the staff is amazing. They gave us a free taco deli tacos today! The WiFi is free and but not that fast.

Wins:
— Quick service
— Conveniently located near the capital
— Fair price point
— Clean
— Not Starbucks
Opportunity:
— Lacked Austin friendliness
— Didn’t feel local
BLUF: If your downtown and want a quick coffee, snack, or clean bathroom, consider checking out Espression Lavazza.

Nothing special here. Coffee is good which is what you expect for a place named lavazza. Otherwise food is comparable to Starbucks.

The modern and elegant environment makes a perfect café.

Went window shopping in Austin and came across this café along the way. You can smell the aroma of the coffee on the street and it was what drew me in… so glad I stopped by! I ordered an iced white mocha, it was so good! Strong and smooth coffee accented with a little chocolate sauce and plenty of ice. My husband ordered the banana honey smoothie and it was delicious! The taste was subtle and sweet, but not overly sweet. They had a great variety of pastries and quiche on display, but the almond croissant looked very appetizing, so we shared one. It was warmed up and complemented our drinks really well. would love to go back and try the wedding cookies and a panini because they looked delish! Would definitely go back when I’m back in Austin!

We are 3 Australians who have been travelling all over the Western U.S. across 11 states for past 5 months. This is THE BEST coffee we have found while we’ve been here. Definitely worth trying!

The interior is pretty well designed but a bit bland. Bland is how I would describe this shop in general. The coffee I got wasn’t bad, the muffin I got was pretty good, but it wasn’t anything outstanding, just really exceptional in anyway.
I haven’t tried any sandwiches so maybe that’s their specialty or something. I will say the drinks are all reasonably priced. Also the music is on point.
Overall not a bad place to get coffee and a snack, but I wouldn’t go out of my way.

This place is pricy, but the food is great and the milk shakes are better. I have coworkers that say the ice coffees are better then Starbucks. The café is a nice chill place to go and relax away from work with a good selection of food and drink. I sometimes go just for the gelato or milkshakes that are hand made and customized by the person making them. Most of the time, the person making the shake puts their own little spin on it and adds different ingredients to make the shakes better overall.
Lavazza has a few areas to sit the are either conducive to small meetings with seats and coffee tables or actual places that have tables and chairs to eat a meal at. I see a lot of people going to Lavazza to read a book or eBook and have some coffee. I have also seen a number of business meetings happen there as well.
Great place with a great staff and wonderful atmosphere.

Their iced coffee is smooth. Not too harsh but still has a rich flavor. No syrups needed. I would recommend it to heavy coffee drinkers. as the flavored lattes are all too sweet. Plus they serve taco deli breakfast tacos! Good place to go for lunch if you want something light. They have a $ 5 deal of a sandwich, cookie, and tea sometimes too! MUCH better than Starbucks across the street,

Met my sister-​in-​law here for coffee since she works a mere coupla blocks away.
Nice to have another coffee option downtown, on Congress Ave.;close to the Capitol. It’s got kind of a lounge-​y, modern, euro-​style vibe, which in some ways, is cool, but on the other hand, the chain’s gotta integrate some more textures/​textiles into their interior design, cuz it looks pretty sterile on the inside — thus not really wanting to make you sit for a long time.
They serve bistro-​type food and desserts to go with your coffee; the way they have their savory food displayed in the case made it look lifeless, so even though I hadn’t had lunch, I passed that over for dessert.
If I recall correctly, I ordered —
Café Americano, Italian wedding cookies, and some sort of pear/​custard pastry.
My sister ordered a chocolate croissant.
Note that Unilocal categorizes this place as a «bakery» though they are like most other chain coffee places in that they prob get their pastries shipped from elsewhere. Though they were good, they also tasted standard — but definitely not freshly made as if you were in a bakery.
The Café Americano was lukewarm; almost room temperature; however, I was pressed for time and didn’t bother complaining. Instead, after my first cup, I paid for a secondary house-​brew cup of coffee — MUCH MUCH hotter.
They weren’t horrible, but fairly standard like other chains such as Starbucks.
Note that my sister told me that she came back the next day for quiche, and mentioned it was good.
I wouldn’t necessarily come back on my own unless I was meeting someone here…

This quant sandwich café is close to the Capitol and a nice place to get a light meal. I ordered the mozzarella and sun dried tomato panini, it was nice and refreshing. It wasn’t too filling but that’s exactly what I needed as an in-​between meal. The service is friendly and my order came out pretty fast.

Where do I start… Space was limited so I was stuck on the low tables section which made it impossible to eat or to use the computer.
My coffee was cold and flavorless, I ordered a hazelnut latte settling on the flavor because they didn’t have the 3 other flavors I wanted.
I also made a mistake of ordering food. The panini was a thick wrap w zucchini and tomatoes with olive oil flavor. Subway does way better at making simple sandwiches then this place.
The entire time I was there they had oldies music playing which clearly didn’t go with the Italian theme they were going for.
Parking as expected was awful since this place it’s on congress.
I been to more then 35 coffee houses In Austin and this is by far the worse coffee I ever had. Maybe the barista was having a
bad day, I don’t know but there was no emotion showing on her face, total zombie.
Maybe this place that’s slowly killing her spirit.

I visit Lavazza at least every other week. They’re less than a block away from the Starbucks on Congress, which I visit daily, but I typically choose Lavazza for lunch meetings since they have larger tables, a classy vibe, more space, and decent wifi.
Not many low fat or low-​carb/​Paleo options here, so I typically have a salad or the Italian sandwich, which comes with a salad and their awesome balsamic dressing. For something on the sweeter side, I go with the yogurt parfait or an Italian wedding cookie. Others like the chocolate banana bread and gelato. When you’re in a mood for high-​fat, the spinach quiche could hit the spot or perhaps a pizza.
I finally decided to write a review because of the generosity that a staff member showed today. My friend and I had visited the nearby Starbucks, but they were out of breakfast items, so we opted for a quiche from Lavazza instead. Unfortunately, we arrived about 15 minutes before their late opening (9am since it’s the day after New Year’s Day), so we were standing outside in the 39-​degree windy, rainy, cold weather with no breakfast options except the vending machine back at work.
In desperation, my friend knocked on the door to see if we could come inside, and to our surprise, they let us in so we could have a hot breakfast. We could tell that that it was a little inconvenient, so we thanked them several times. I’m sure that opening early for only two customers may not seem worth it, but they made the right decision. We happen to be among their handful of «evangelist» customers who always tell our co-​workers about them and try to bring friends who aren’t aware of their location.
I hope you give Lavazza a try since their food is pretty good, ambiance is unique for the area, and they treated us like they’d probably want someone to treat them if they were in our circumstances.

I frequent this spot for lunch during the week. For about $ 8 you can get a yummy sandwich with a side salad. If the weather is nice I’ll get it to go and have a picnic at the state Capitol.
As a bonus, my friend has certain diet restrictions and they’re always open to making changes or substitutions to help her out. I also like that they’re usually not too busy at lunch, making it a quick stop if needed.

I’ve been meaning to stop by this place for lunch since it’s an easy walk from my work, and I’m tired of the food options I have. They advertise a $ 5 lunch special, choice of sandwich, iced tea, and chips, which is hard to beat downtown, so I stopped in yesterday. Cute place, high ceilings, light and bright, funky modern fashion artwork. Most tables were full at lunch, but I snagged the last open one. Looks like a cool place to work from, if you have the leisurely type of work you can do in coffee shops, unlike me. Servers were friendly, and I got the turkey sandwich for lunch which came with choice of cheese and toppings. You can choose a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips and they have two kinds of iced tea (black or raspberry). They also had simple syrup at the sugar fixings bar, which made it easy to sweeten my iced tea just a bit. Waited about 5 – 10 minutes for my sandwich, but it came out nicely toasted and warm and melty inside. Worth the wait. Great deal, and the homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookie I added for $ 1, was the bomb! I will definitely be back. Very chill place. Also seems like a good place for coffee, pastries, or gelato, which I ogled, but didn’t try this time. Check it out.

Drink=4 stars.
Customer service= 1.5−2 stars.
The blended coffee mocha drink I got was pretty tasty. It had a strong coffee taste but was still sweet enough to not send my taste buds over the edge. (If you’ve read my other reviews, you’ll know I’m not that into coffee).
The worst part of my visit really was a few of the baristas. I came here with my family (husband, brother, sister in law and 3 nephews). We really wanted a place to cool off and hang out after visiting the Capitol. We went in here and my nephews were immediately drawn to the gelato. Being kids, they wanted to try out a few flavors before settling on their final choice. The girl helping them out did not smile or seem happy to help them at all. She really seemed like she couldn’t be bothered. She was much more interested in talking to her coworkers than my family. it just really irked me how uninterested she was. I understand that we got there 30 minutes before closing but… still, I don’t think that warranted the unfriendliness and aloofness.
If I was solely rating the product, this would be 4 star place. Too bad their customer service couldn’t be on that same level.

Great coffee drinks, large cups with tasty choices. Smoked Salmon egg sandwich is fantastic! Also enjoyed the spinach quiche during another visit. Great place to stop near the capital. Great start to the day!