Alley Cat Cafe

Two-in-one spots are hard to pull off, but Alley Cat Cafe has been quietly nailing it on Saginaw Street since 2016. By day, the sunlit lower-level coffee shop is one of downtown Pontiac’s best places to plant a laptop — real espresso drinks, baked goods, sandwiches like a smoked-salmon-and-cream-cheese or a mozzarella-pesto, and the kind of unhurried, everybody-knows-everybody hum that makes an afternoon disappear. By night, head upstairs, where a scratch kitchen turns out proper little plates and refined entrees — grilled lamb chops, papas bravas, mushroom-and-spinach tortellini, salmon with herb remoulade — and the bar rail trades espresso for cocktails. There’s live music on Wednesdays and Saturdays, a wine cellar tucked behind the coffee shop for dinners and events, and (ask the bartender) a supposedly haunted basement. It’s the rare place that’s genuinely good at two completely different jobs, which makes it a flexible anchor for a day or a night in Pontiac. On our list — come for coffee, stay for the lamb chops, or just let it turn into a whole evening.