Roasted Oak — Restaurant in Gulf Shores

Was recently looking for a coffee shop while in Orange Beach that wasn’t, well, tacky. Something more mature and well-designed. Saw the photos and generally positive reviews and chose to come here.

Just beware, this is in a hotel. While not a dealbreaker, it definitely feels that not only is it a coffee shop in a hotel, it is a coffee shop FOR the hotel. Navigating to the actual coffee bar was assisted by no signs and only a certain intuition of following where you saw people walking with full cups of coffee (it’s in the back left corner of the lobby). Corroborating this, the (very friendly and helpful) staff had to manually key in my card number.

Well is it any good? Yeah it was.

They use superauto espresso machines, so no “art” to it, but the latte I ordered was good. My wife likewise hers. I got a parfait which was generously portioned and yummy, while she got some leek pastry, which she loved. Water is bottled, straws are eco. All milk substitutes available.

I give four stars because I do feel a bit like I’m not explicitly “supposed” to be here, whether by design or otherwise. Which is a pity because it has the chops to be a truly great coffee shop. As it stands, it’s a footnote in a stay at the Hilton. A pretty, tasty footnote, but a footnote...

The lodge is beautiful and has a wonderful inside and outside atmosphere. Coffee selections sounded great and we were eager to try them. The result however was a huge let down. Coffee was watery with barely any flavor and just sweet same for the hot cocoa we got for our 3 kids. Everything tasted like sugar water. The girl behind the counter was no where to be found for the first 6 minutes we were waiting there thinking that maybe they were closed. Then she came over and didn't greet us or apologize for the wait, just said what do you want to order. We ordered 5 drinks and she seemed not thrilled to be the one having to make them. We chose this place to have a coffee on our vacation based upon location and reviews of others and I hope this was a 1 time bad experience. We plan on coming back to the lodge for our next vacation to...

5/5 for atmosphere and views. 4/5 on the coffee.

It's not a specialty coffee spot (there aren't any of those in Gulf Shores or Orange Beach), so the coffee itself can't hit that 5/5 rating. But that said: the coffee drinks and pastries are both very tasty and very enjoyable here.

Grab a mocha and drink it while sitting in a comfortable chair watching the waves roll in and the clouds drift past.

And they have Guinness and Glenlivet, so that's...