La Prima Espresso

Love this cute little coffee stand in the ugliest building at CMU. [this is the campus version review]
Pros: Good selection of your staples and a small seating area to enjoy your beverage. Cheap good stuffed croissants.
Cons: Inflated coffee prices in order to take advantage of college block system and keep our student loans up. In Wean hall so tucked far away into the corner of campus.

Extremely convenient Oakland outpost of the Strip District gem. They recently changed their queuing system to reduce the cluster mess that used to be their waiting-​for-​coffee clump… but just because their lines are now orderly, doesn’t mean there is less of a line! Grab your coffee during time slots that aren’t close to the half hour when students are in class. If you’re in for a long day, get the double cappuccino for a lovely caffeine boost. They also have some incredible baked goods from Colangelo’s– you absolutely must get the raspberry croissant.

I would have given this place 4.5 stars if I could. La Prima definitely has the best coffee/​hot beverages on campus and some really really good pastries too!
For hot drinks I always either get the regular coffee or the mocha cappuccino — both are great! For pastries — the scones and croissants are delicious and the chocolate croissant is divine! The staff is friendly, and this place is perfect for a quick bite in the morning. They also have small premade lunch sandwiches but I can’t speak to their quality since I’ve never had them.
The only minor con is the lines are really long in the 5 – 10 minutes before morning classes. To try to minimize this, they have a line for ordering hot drinks and then a line for paying for the drink/​anything else you got, but the problem is this isn’t very clear so I’ve definitely seen some frustrated people wait in the paying line only to realize they have to go the drink ordering line first and then go back to the beginning of the paying line. Not sure if this is the best system because if you’re getting a hot drink you have wait in 2 lines which you normally don’t have time for.
One cool thing though is at the end of the day, whatever pastries they have left they put in a box and just leave it out on the Wean tables right in front of the place. I’ve been sitting there when they close down and sometimes they just give me a whole box of macaroons! Tasty and free!