My latest café crush is the newly redesigned Watermark Café in the RISD Store (Rhode Island School of Design, for you out-of-towners). The store is always a great place to fawn over art supplies and glossy books, and now the cafe has been revisioned as a source for healthy, creative food and drinks.
Watermark Cafe
Watermark offers coffee, pastries, salads and sandwiches. The comfy, dark wood room has a few tables, some great magazines (I flipped through Saveur), and a nice view of downtown and the river. It reminds me of a museum cafe, except you don’t have to pay an entrance fee!
This would be a delightful stop if you’re visiting Providence and want to rest after a tour of the RISD museum, which is just up the hill. I just poked in for a quick cup of coffee after a meeting, but I plan on returning for a snack soon.
It’s open 9-6 Monday through Thursday, 9-3 on Friday. The RISD Store is located at 30 North Main Street, but the public entrance is on the pedestrian-only Canal Street by the river.
Watermark Cafe
30 North Main St., Providence (entrance on 
Canal Street)
There are all these new places in our city that I need to try! Do you know if Watermark has free wi-fi?
Good question – I didn’t have my laptop. I’d imagine they have access to the RISD wireless network, but I think that’s encrypted.
How does it compare to Coffee Exchange and Pastiche? Those two are the Providence juggernauts in my mind.
Actually, I had decaf (I know, I know) and it was surprisingly good! But I think it’s a lot less coffee-oriented than Coffee Exchange.