Spinning Jenny’s Coffee Bar

Espresso and fresh juice off the Lincoln lobby

Spinning Jenny's runs the coffee counter in the lobby of the Lincoln Hotel in Biddeford, and it is open to anyone who walks in, not only to people with a room key. The drinks are the straightforward end of a café list, espresso and lattes hot or iced, with fresh juice for anyone skipping coffee altogether. Food is breakfast-shaped: pastries and baked goods, bagels, a yogurt parfait, breakfast sandwiches, and grab-and-go items for people already on their way somewhere.

A hotel lobby that behaves like a café

The room does as much work here as the menu. The lobby is a designed space with a mid-century lean, jazz playing, couches to sink into and enough light through the front to make it a bright place to sit in the morning. That puts Spinning Jenny's somewhere between hotel lounge and neighbourhood coffee stop, which is useful either way: a friend catch-up on a couch, a quiet hour with a laptop, or a fast cup on the way out. There is a patio for the months that allow it. Biddeford's old mill quarter has been filling with rooms like this one, and the Lincoln's is among the more comfortable places in it to spend an hour.

Get a latte and a bagel

The reliable order is an espresso drink with something simple from the case: a latte, iced if the day calls for it, with a bagel, a pastry or the yogurt parfait beside it. Fresh juice is the alternative to lead with, and the breakfast sandwich is the fuller option when the stop is standing in for a meal. Nothing here is elaborate and none of it needs to be. The counter is built for a quick, well-made coffee and a plate that gets you to lunch, taken in a lobby worth sitting down in.