Although the hill has lost some of its scruff, it’s okay, because it cleans up pretty nice. The key is keeping things fresh and simple, and that is all the Hilltop aspires to. Local Portland Coffee By Design brews are lined up at self-serve attention across from a counter that can address more complicated caffeine needs—something for the busker and the labradoodle-owner alike. You’ll find fresh pastries (of the plain old muffin/bagel variety), bacon or no-bacon wrapped ready-to-go breakfast sandwiches, one small plate of daily cookies. Tea, of course. But anything else, and you’ll have to head next door. The Hilltop Coffee Shop refuses to crowd its counter with Luna bars and five dollar mints, which is, I think, refreshing.

 

The coffee shop shares its small brick building—hunkered on the Congress Street curb—with a local convenient store. Convenient because it carries a host of things from toothpaste to canned goods, but that’s where its similarities to other “convenient stores” starts and stops. The bright and breezy market is verdant with fresh veggies, and all the processed foods appear to wear a USDA badge proudly. These are, no doubt, the products that foot the bill for an amazing stainless steel counter punched with squares of pounded bronze that hugs a great spatial curve. Truly, this must be the only register in Portland with a throne, but the workers on the other side are anything but haughty.

 

These two businesses hum with activity, spitting customers back and forth through facing front doors. A community dog bowl outside requires walkers stop and leads the eye to a small garden on the side of the building. There’s rocks for sitting, a nook of a lawn, and a picket fence that underwent a classy graffiti treatment, but the Munjoy Hill hoodlums my mother always warned me about are really all but extinct. And the tiny white building that sits in this pint-size park—the Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Organization—stands testament. There’s now law and order in a community people wouldn’t risk a detour through in the seventies. But not everyone’s fallen into perfect tow: men in skirts, the girl with the cat eyes and the pink veiled hat (at 10 a.m.), a spat of farmers in overalls, a parrot on an old man's shoulder. It’s comforting to see that social outliers have survived the unfortunate evolutionary streamline. It’s what makes the Hilltop and its neighborhood so diverse. And that feels safe.

 

HOURS: Open “8 days a week,” 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (8:30 p.m. in the summer). (207) 780.0025.