The University of Montevallo's Little Known Secret: Jazzman's Cafe

Though popular on campus for its convenience to students, Jazzman's Cafe is relatively unknown to the public, despite being open to all customers. Located in the basement of Farmer Hall, Jazzman's is a coffee shop famed, oddly enough, more for its smoothies than its coffee. It's not that the coffee is bad - far from it, really - but the coffee is a bit pricey compared to other local shops. Its smoothies, however, are reasonably priced and can feature any combination of flavors from a fairly wide list, providing more variety than most comparable establishments. A number of other cold drinks are offered, including the popular blueberry green tea and some frozen coffee drinks.

The coffee, as previously mentioned, is good, but the shop features fairly mundane flavors: hazelnut, french vanilla, crème brulee, the occasional cinnabon, as well a pair of flavors called Bold Note and Signature Blend. For a small fee, a shot of flavor can be added, including Irish Cream.

Jazzman's also provides a small menu of food items: several types of sandwiches and salads (the Santa Fe turkey focaccia sandwich is particularly good, as is the pizza panini), and in the mornings, a handful of breakfast items. The bacon, egg, and cheese bagel is this author's favorite. A wide selection of cookies, muffins, and other sweets are offered - the scones, in particular, are very good. All of the food items are priced as expected for a coffee shop.

A pair of computers with Internet access are available for customer use, and the cafe has WiFi access. Laptop users should be sure their batteries are charged, however, as it may be difficult to find a spare plug to use for charging. A set of jazz tunes plays over speakers most times, but while this lends a fun atmosphere on first visit, frequent customers may find the music dull, as Jazzman's literally is a restaurant with only one CD to play. In fact, the same set of songs plays all year long, except just before Christmas, when a collection of jazzy holiday music is played.

A few couches and comfortable chairs are scattered around the place, and Jazzman's offers a choice of sitting at shorter or taller tables, or at the bar. Customers should be aware that it may be difficult to hold conversations near the bar, however, as it is situated near the smoothie machine, and the grating sound of the ice shaver can make it noisy. A set of tables on the back patio provide allow customers to enjoy the Alabama sunshine.

As a lesser-known business in the area, Jazzman's is usually less crowded than comparable coffee shops in the area, making it the ideal place to crash for a few hours to study or work on projects, and students of the campus can often be seen cramming for exams.

Unfortunately, Jazzman's isn't open quite late enough for my tastes: it closes around 9:30 every night, and closes early on Fridays and Saturdays. Jazzman's biggest detractor, however, is the fact that Jazzman's doesn't accept credit or debit cards; word on campus is that this is expected to change soon. The cafe does accept checks.