The Railway Café, the red caboose at 795 Peace Portal Drive, was set to serve its last coffee on Aug. 31. For eight years Vicka and Rodney Haywood ran it from a train car that's more than 100 years old, baking pastries in the tiny kitchen at the back and serving sandwiches, breakfast burritos and soups, all made in-house. The windows looked out on Drayton Harbor. "It was a heck of a train ride, I'll tell you that," Haywood told The Northern Light before closing day.
The caboose was a sit-down coffee stop on the waterfront. The next coffee shop to open in town is built for people who stay in their cars. In Blaine, early-morning coffee is moving to drive-thru windows and to Birch Bay.
Who's Pouring, and When
Start with opening hours, since that's what decides where coffee comes from at 6 a.m.
| Spot | Where | Opens | Published hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Woods Coffee, Birch Bay Square | 8130 Birch Bay Square St., with a drive-thru | 5 a.m. weekdays, 5:30 a.m. weekends | Mon–Fri 5 a.m.–6 p.m., Sat–Sun 5:30 a.m.–6 p.m. |
| Koa Table Cafe | Birch Bay Drive, sharing a building with the WorldMark resort | 7 a.m. | 7 a.m.–5 p.m. daily, as reported in February 2026 |
| The Way Cafe | 4323 Alderson Road, Unit 108 | 7 a.m. | Mon–Sat 7 a.m.–5 p.m. |
| Seaview Café | Inside the Semiahmoo Resort main building | 7 a.m. | Mon–Fri 7 a.m.–1 p.m., Sat–Sun 7–11 a.m. |
| Packers Kitchen + Bar | Semiahmoo Resort, near the pier | 8 a.m. weekends | Weekend brunch 8 a.m.–2 p.m. |
| L&L Bakery | 477 Peace Portal Dr., Suite 101 | 8:30 a.m. | Tue–Sat 8:30 a.m.–6 p.m., Sun 10 a.m.–4 p.m., closed Mon |
| Moe's Coffee | 791 Grant Ave., drive-thru and walk-up window | No date announced as of Oct. 1 | Opening hoped for early November |
The first two hours of the day belong to Birch Bay. Woods at Birch Bay Square opens three and a half hours before the Peace Portal Drive bakery on the list on weekdays, and it has a drive-thru. Koa Table and The Way Cafe both open at 7 a.m. The Semiahmoo spit's options open early too, but they also close early.
What Downtown Lost Was a Way of Having Coffee
The Railway Café was small, but it did three things at once. It served breakfast food made on site, it had a harbor view, and it gave walkers a place to stop on Peace Portal Drive. According to The Northern Light, the caboose came to Blaine in the 1980s and housed a gift shop and another cafe before the Haywoods ran it. In August, Vicka Haywood said the property and caboose were likely to be put up for sale. No buyer or new use has been publicly announced.
Downtown still has a good morning stop in L&L Bakery at 477 Peace Portal Dr., but it runs on a bakery's schedule. Doors open at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday and at 10 a.m. on Sunday, and the shop is closed Mondays. On a Monday at 7 a.m., the closest published option to Peace Portal Drive is no longer in downtown.
The Newcomer Is a Window, Not a Room
Moe's Coffee is the business coming to fill some of that gap, and its format matches the trend. The Northern Light reported that Kaitlyn and Craig Davis will open a drive-thru with a walk-up window at 791 Grant Ave. It will serve roasted Italian coffee, tea, energy drinks, acai bowls and bagels. It will be the brand's fourth location, after two in Arlington and one in Darrington. The couple told the paper they had been working toward a fourth location for about three years.
"We've looked at lots of different areas and lots of different places over time, and the Blaine opportunity just kept coming back," Craig Davis told The Northern Light.
The Davises had not set an exact opening date as of that Oct. 1 story. They hoped to open in early November and pointed customers to moescoffee.com for details. Cascadia Daily News reported that the company also plans a scholarship for Blaine High School graduates who want to go into hospitality, with details to come.
A drive-thru window is the same morning habit Woods already serves at Birch Bay Square.
Birch Bay Already Runs the Early Shift
Most of the area's morning options sit along the Birch Bay corridor. Those businesses have Blaine mailing addresses, but they're in Birch Bay, not downtown Blaine.
Koa Table Cafe opened on Jan. 12, after a soft opening at the Jan. 1 Birch Bay Polar Bear Plunge, where it handed out a few hundred cups of free coffee. Its espresso is a house blend of Hammerhead Northwest Espresso beans with 10% Kona beans flown in from Hawaii. The kitchen makes Spam musubi, Loco Moco burgers and chicken teriyaki. Co-owner Kaleo Day told The Northern Light that most of its business comes from guests and employees of the WorldMark resort it shares a building with. He also said the resorts fill up even in slow months like Valentine's Day weekend. A cafe with that kind of steady winter traffic has a reason to open at 7 a.m. every day.
The Way Cafe on Alderson Road held its grand-opening ribbon cutting on June 28, 2025. It serves drinks and pastries, and the Bellingham Herald reported that it donates proceeds from every purchase to Bridge Community Hope Center, a food bank and clothing boutique.
Baywood Coffee, at 8036 Birch Bay Drive since 2024, is in a holding pattern. The owners announced on Sept. 20 that the business is for sale ahead of a move to Seattle. Cascadia Daily News reported that the cafe will stay open through the winter while they look for a buyer. "My hope is to find someone who understands how special Baywood is and will continue caring for the shop and the community that has made it what it is today," owner Antonie Inthavong wrote on social media, as quoted by the paper.
On the Spit, Breakfast Ends at 11
Semiahmoo has the harbor views the caboose had, but on a short schedule. The resort's Seaview Café serves espresso and grab-and-go food next to a fireplace in the main building. It's open 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. on weekdays and only 7 to 11 a.m. on weekends. Packers Kitchen + Bar, over the water near the pier, serves weekend brunch from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the resort notes that holidays may affect hours. Down the parkway, the Semiahmoo Marina Café has a full espresso menu and serves breakfast sandwiches, biscuits with gravy and cinnamon rolls until 11 a.m.
If you want coffee with a view of the water on a Saturday, plan on finishing by late morning.
Matching the Morning to the Spot
Here's how the hours above fit common mornings:
- Before 7 a.m., any day: Woods at Birch Bay Square, with the drive-thru open from 5 a.m. on weekdays.
- Monday on Peace Portal Drive: L&L is closed, so head out to the Birch Bay cafes or the spit.
- Weekend breakfast by the water: Packers brunch runs until 2 p.m., while Seaview and the Marina Café wrap up breakfast at 11 a.m.
- A Hawaiian breakfast plate: Koa Table, every day of the week as reported in February.
- Pastries downtown: L&L Bakery, from 8:30 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 10 a.m. on Sunday.
Three open questions will decide how this map looks by spring. When will Moe's first serve on Grant Avenue? Will Baywood find a buyer who keeps it running? And what happens to the caboose at 795 Peace Portal Drive? Peace Portal Drive will also get two new spots to sit outside. The Northern Light reported that Blaine received $392,000 for parklets at the Martin Street and Clark Street intersections, with seating, a shelter, picnic tables and play features planned and construction anticipated the following spring in that April 2026 story.
I keep an eye on small changes like these around Blaine and Birch Bay, from a new drive-thru on Grant Avenue to a well-known storefront coming up for sale, because they shape daily life in town. If you'd like to talk about a commercial property along Peace Portal Drive or a home within walking distance of your favorite morning stop, Jacob Petz is glad to help. Let's Connect.
