Book Trader Cafe

A great little coffee shop and bookstore situated right across from the School of Architecture. This café has good brews, great tea options and a little bit of attitude served with your purchase. It is a great place to browse for used books, have a quiet date in the midst of the stacks or have a meal in the café area. Overall, a hidden gem of a coffee shop in New Haven.

Recommended by my friend about their coffee. Great taste with great price. Will try some cookies next time!

This place is like somewhere out of a movie — It’s so cute and dreamy! I always tag my friends along here. It’s also really nice to get some work done. I love the vegan options btw!

It’s bizarre that I haven’t already reviewed this place — I’ve been several times. They have reasonably priced vegan baked goods and sandwiches. It’s also in a convenient location for me, so I’ll often pop in to see what they have.

When I move to a new city, the first thing I do is find a good used bookstore. Luckily with Book Trader I didn’t have to try too hard. As an English major, I can spend hours scouring for good deals, cult literature, and classics. I managed to find the books for half of a Jane Austen seminar for what I’m sure is a quarter of the price. They do a great job of pulling popular books to the front and keeping everything well organized. Being on a college campus also means they have a great selection of poetry and other less conventionally popular categories. That being said, I wish they had more notecards with personal book reviews – other used bookstores I’ve gone too (most notably in San Francisco or New York) have a wonderfully personal and quirky habit of letting their employees write personal reviews. It does a great deal to make a shop more inviting.
Instead of selling my textbooks back to the campus bookstore (and getting majorly cheated, price wise) I return my books to the beautiful Book Trader ecosystem. I’ve managed to save money buying and selling back books in that manner. This is also a great place to study. The ambiance is peaceful and artsy. Everywhere you turn, you encounter either shelves decked with a multitude of books, or ceiling high windows. The patio is also lovely.
As for the food: their sandwiches are great (and the names are hilarious), but their coffee is just ok. It can be too weak, at times, as other Unilocalers have noted. But I’m a sucker for drip coffee, so I’m more forgiving. The staff is so nice it’s worth mentioning. I’ve only ever had pleasant experiences.

Love this place. Their scones are AMAZING! Always different varieties available too– I’ve had almond joy, chocolate chip, and raspberry pear. House blend hot coffee is a nice blend. Iced coffee is a bit weak. Overall this place is great! The staff is friendly too :)

This is a nice place to study. Either indoor or outdoor seating, whatever you prefer.
Never been to the bookstore section, but I hear it’s great!
As for food, only have tried their baked goods and drinks. Iced coffee is standard. Had their cranberry walnut muffin. It was quite big and tasted good. I enjoyed the crust part of it.
Another day, I tried their ginger bar. The ginger taste was a bit overpowering, and most of the time, I felt like I was eating straight out sugar. Wouldn’t recommend it.
Hoping to try out their sandwiches; names are pretty creative.

I had heard a few people around the shire highly recommending this pedaler. It is true, best coffee (treat yourself to the pour over if you have a moment). The owner even ran (literally ran) out to get me almond milk. Also– the bagels are otherworldly.

This place is amazing. I go in there often and can always find a book. They’re super cheap too, I usually get a book for $ 5 and change or less! The store may not be big but it’s surprising how many books there are. They have political, history, new age, occult, and so much more. The workers are also really helpful and nice. They serve amazing cheap coffee as well!

The chai was good. I ordered the tempesto– it tasted good and you could tell the ingredients were fresh; however, the presentation was less than satisfactory, and I think the sandwich was overpriced for what it was.
I could see enjoying this place a lot if you want to sit outside– the patio area is lovely. Inside, the seating wasn’t comfy, and it wasn’t very clean. The staff was friendly enough.
All in all, a very average experience.

A Tale of Two Turkeys A has been my favorite sandwich for as long as I can remember, but sadly they seem to have changed the turkey. The slabs of real roasted turkey have been replaced with thin, processed, deli turkey. It’s still good as a whole because the bread, coleslaw, and Russian dressing are awesome, but it’s nowhere near the amazing sandwich it used to be. Please bring back the real roasted turkey!!!

Stopped here on the way to back to NYC from the Cape and had a great lunch. Half a Tale of Turkeys and a cup of their homemade chicken and black bean chili. Yum! Added on some chocolate espresso beans, too. Inside the bookstore and café is lovely and the outdoor seating paired with a beautiful day makes this a perfect stop. Thank you!

Several evenings ago I had a craving for espresso and fortunately Book Trader Café was open for coffee at 8:30pm.
When I entered, I was greeted by very friendly staff. I ordered my doppio and took a seat. My espresso was prepared excellently by Ed — it was smooth, with flavourful notes, and lots of depth.
I have previously popped in Book Trader for a cup of coffee with good experiences. The staff is consistently friendly and their drip coffee is good.
Verdict:
Wonderful experience and great staff

One of my favorite places to go when I want to eat a nice sandwich and spend hours reading. I often come here alone and never felt out of place once. If you haven’t been here yet, choose a book, order the Tempesto sandwich, and sit near the windows (or outside if the weather is nice). You won’t regret it!

Ugh again with the super weak coffee. What does New Haven have against coffee that actually tastes like coffee?
Anyway…
The sandwiches at this place are pretty great. So far I’ve tried the Jane Rare and the Veggie Burger (forget if this one had a «punny» name). Both were excellent. I’m not a big veggie burger person, but theirs is really tasty.
I recommend taking to go, or coming at a slightly off time. It can get pretty crowded at lunch time with students, depending on the day.

Book Trader’s big pull is light. The main seating area resembles a conservatory (but swap plants for books), so you will be exposed to a lot of light, no matter the time of day. Its location within a bookstore is also a nice feature, allowing one to reminisce and to show children how people used to buy books before the Internet.
The egg sandwich is decent and well priced though you pay a premium for anything else. The big let down here is the service. Less like a modern coffee shop and more like a school bake sale, the staff forget orders, deliver the wrong item and generally are flying by the seat of their pants. They threaten to turn off the wifi at lunchtime with the (probably accurate) idea that it will discourage sitters though I haven’t yet encountered them following through on their advertised threat.
Despite the feeling that every staff member is filling in for a sick friend, it is still worth visiting, if only for the light and bookish surroundings. Grab a spot at the bar by the window for good people watching.

Lovely establishment!
Their sandwich names are incredibly clever. I’m a huge fan of literature and puns, so even if their sandwiches tasted awful, I’d be a fan of their food. However, their food is good. I’m not the hugest fan of their coffee, but it was better than my home brew.
Their book selection was larger than I expected, and I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. The prices weren’t horrible either. I mean, thrift stores are less expensive, but the selection here is better.
Good amount of seating available as well, both indoor and out. I’d come back.

I’ve never had the food at this place, so my review will be solely based on my experiences buying and selling (mostly selling). In this rough economy, it’s hard making a dollar, and it is really refreshing to know about any book store that will buy books and give whatever they don’t need to charity so that one doesn’t have to haul boxes upon boxes of books back to one’s vehicle while dodging swarms of Yalies and other New Havenites on Chapel St. Granted, since I’ve been cleaning out a hoarder house and bringing the hoarder’s books here, a lot of them have been rejected for being old and irrelevant, which I can completely understand, since as I said, they probably have people bringing in thousands of books every week.
The gentleman whom evaluates the books is EXTREMELY kind though. He usually is fair and he explains in detail why he can’t take certain books, and I’m usually happy with his explanations. The books they sell seem to be reasonably priced, and some day when the tides turn and I have disposable income once more, I might just have to buy a few myself, as well as try out some of their food items.

Book Trader is one of the best sandwich shops in New Haven. I’ve tried their entire menu and would put the Turkey A, Turkey B, Jane Rare, or Tempesto above just about anything else in the area. All uniquely delicious. The only two things preventing me from giving them a five star rating are:
a. Their coffee isn’t great and is far too weak for my taste
b. Sometimes later in the day they run out of ingredients, which is soul-​crushing when you’ve been dreaming about a specific sandwich for hours
They have an outdoor patio that is a perfect place to eat during the warmer months, and the indoor seating is surrounded by all of their bookshelves and has a pleasant vibe as well. I’ve never actually purchased any books here, but they have an eclectic selection and I imagine you could find some real gems if you took the time to browse the store.
I love this place. I’m going to miss it dearly when I leave.

Best Sandwich in America? For shame, Adam Richman.
That show duped me into stopping into this little hippy place to try the A Tale Of Two Turkeys Sandwich ($ 7.50). You can choose either style A, which is the one they’re known for from the show, and has roasted turkey, swiss, cole slaw and Russian dressing on plain, hard, cold bread, or Style B, which sounds better and has smoked turkey and orange cranberry chutney on sourdough.
This sandwich is really underwhelming. I think even without knowing it was considered one of the best sandwiches by the Man vs. Food guy, the fact still remains that the turkey was dry, the bread was cold, and there was no seasoning.
Other than the mediocre sandwich, they have a bunch of other foods as well as baked goods that looked like they might have been decent, but I didn’t want to waste myself after not even finishing the sandwich.
They have a nice outdoor area with seating where you can listen to really annoying self-​important Yale students discussing theater and other things to try to make themselves sound smart. But it just makes it that much harder to get through that sandwich.
Don’t let your curiosity get the better of you like I did — this sandwich is probably not even the best one in this café, let alone the country.