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Tucked inside a 123-year-old building in downtown Eugene, Chapter & Steam’s fall drinks are as whimsical as its romantic dark academia aesthetic, brewing up everything from pumpkin butter breves to caramel apple cider floats.
I started hearing The Question in late August.
“Is it too early to get a pumpkin spice latte?”
Some of the most delicious things are best enjoyed in their proper season: juicy tomatoes in late summer, spring artichokes and asparagus.
But fall’s quintessential drink gets a little wiggle room.
“No way,” I responded. “Get that pumpkin spice latte.”
PSL fever is real in Oregon, according to DoorDash’s 2024 heatmap of pumpkin spice latte orders. Per company data, pumpkin was Oregon’s top fall flavor, and the state accounted for some of the highest per-person PSL orders in the country.
Still, fall drink flavors are branching out at coffee shops like Chapter & Steam in Eugene, where you can sip on maple-spiced white chocolate mochas and lattes that taste like banana bread fresh from the oven.
Bailey Prusz, who operates the coffee shop with her mom, Kelly Prusz, saw apple floats popping up in other cities and thought, “Why not here?”
She applied that experimental mindset to Chapter & Steam’s entire fall menu. Coffee might be part of your daily routine, but it’s not every day you get vampire fangs atop your mocha, or an icing ghost peering from your to-go cup.
Her coffee shop’s motto: “Add whimsy to your life.”
“I wanted to do something out of the ordinary,” Bailey Prusz said. “I think it’s kind of fun to not have those things year-round because it makes it more special when you get to have it.”
For your banana and pecan-infused latte, you can pick your own mug from a shelf by the order counter. The mug collection rotates by the season. Right now, mummies, ghosts, black cats and other Halloween-themed cups dominate the shop.
And yes, they do have a crowd favorite: a mug covered with lily of the valley.
“I’ve had at least 20 people be like, ‘This is my favorite mug,” Bailey Prusz said. “I have people who have made me wash it out of the tub because they want to use it.”
A coffee shop with a storied past
When I stopped by Chapter & Steam on a recent unseasonably warm fall day, I felt like I was suddenly transported to a speakeasy from 100 years ago.
There are antique pink velvet chairs beside a fireplace, chandeliers made from book pages, tasseled lamps and leafy plants.
The coffee shop is located on Fifth Avenue inside the Lane Building, a 123-year-old structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Eugene institution has attracted several businesses and vices since 1903: It was once a Prohibition-era speakeasy, a hotel, a brothel, a barber shop and a cookie store.
In 2024, the Prusz family took over the lease.
Aside from the coffee shop, the Fifth Avenue address is shared by Bailey Prusz’s bookstore, Daffodil, and Kelly Prusz’s dessert shops, Sweetbay Shave Ice and O’My Mini Donuts & Beignets.
Running four family businesses under one roof was both a utopian vision — who doesn’t love reading a book with a bag of mini-donuts and a velvety pumpkin breve — and a smart financial decision.
“It’s a shared responsibility and risk,” Kelly Prusz said. “Everybody’s pooling their brains together, their marketing skills together, management skills, and I think it’s almost the way it has to be when you’re a small business anymore.”
Years ago, Kelly Prusz wanted to open a speakeasy-style bar. That didn’t pan out, but she had amassed a ton of vintage items from years of hitting up estate sales. So when her daughter, Bailey Prusz, told her she wanted to open a bookstore with a dark academia aesthetic and needed decorations, she said, “Have you seen my attic lately?”
Kelly Prusz estimates the shop has items from at least 30 homes, adding to the historic charm and sense of community.
“Almost everything in here is thrifted, so it’s been a part of somebody’s life,” she said, tearing up. “It feels like I’m connecting with people and their treasures.”
‘Why not?’
Chapter & Steam doesn’t just do coffee drinks: The shop also makes dirty sodas, mocktails and affogatos.
“We like to have a variety for folks,” Bailey Prusz said.
She just released more Halloween-centric drinks: The Pumpkin Creamsicle mocktail pairs cream soda with warming spices and pumpkin butter’s subtle vegetal sweetness and creamy texture. It’s fabulous and fancy and served in a goblet.
The Pumpkin Creamsicle, in my opinion, is best enjoyed while reading about a dragon rider battling life-draining forces and falling in love with her chiseled, dark-haired enemy.
Daffodil specializes in the romantasy genre, with novels ranging from “young adult to super spicy,” Bailey Prusz said. She handpicks each book and prioritizes diverse authors: The online store features queer and BIPOC categories.
The Prusz shops are built around small pleasures: Let a romantasy tale take you to another world while cozying up in a bookstore from another time. Drink a cinnamony latte in a mummy-wrapped mug. Eat a teensy apple cider doughnut or two (or a bucket of them.)
“Life is so real all of the time,” Bailey Prusz said. “Why not take a little moment in a bookstore and drink a fall drink? Why not enjoy that?”
If you go
Chapter & Steam is at 27 W. Fifth Ave., Eugene, and opens at 10 a.m. Tuesday to Sunday. Chapter & Steam is open later than typical coffee shops, until 7 p.m. weekdays and 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, making for an ideal post-work mocktail hour.
Don’t forget to pick up your Coffee Shop Hop passport at Chapter & Steam. The hop runs through October and features more than 20 participating coffee and tea shops in Lane County. It’s a great way to find new coffee shops and support your favorites. Plus, you get a chance to win a sweatshirt.
