Whether you're searching for soul or some late-night joe, THE COFFEEHOUSE has the remedy.

If you don't know where you're going, you'll never find the Duke Coffeehouse.

At 1 a.m. in December, just a week before finals, I badly needed to study for Econ 51, but I really wanted to visit the Coffeehouse. So I did what any responsible Duke student would do: I called it a night and headed over with my roommate to check it out.

We walked across the empty quad, passed Joe's Dogs with the Marketplace on our left, and then took a right. When we got between Wilson and the Friedl Building, we were still lost but decided to walk around the building. Up the stairs, in what looked like some sort of delivery entrance, we saw someone enter the building. We followed. I peered into the coffeehouse through a partially open door, and I immediately realized that the place seemed, well, out of place.

The Coffeehouse has the feel of a genuine, New York City coffee shop with its mismatched couches and huge bean bag chairs. It's the kind of place that Starbucks would run out of business. In this sense, it's refreshing, a little café on a campus surrounded by commercialized coffee stores.

After all, it is only a place like the Coffeehouse that could serve as a proper home for a loctopus-an animal with the sweeping tentacles of an octopus and the face of a lion that adorns the walls to the delight of visitors until 2 a.m. each morning. Even the bathroom has a certain charm, decorated by careful vandalism taking the form of art. The wall has been adorned with everything from rap lyrics to Lewis Carroll quotes and even offers poignant advice. "F-cars, ride a bike," reads my favorite piece of wisdom.

"The bathrooms are colorful," said senior Andrew Kindman, this year's general manager. "Whoever the hell goes into the bathrooms with permanent markers is who writes them. I mean, I have no idea who writes them, and we neither encourage nor condemn [them]. We appreciate it's there, and we certainly not painting over it, so if you have something profound to say, then by all means [share it]."

There are lattes, cappuccinos and espressos-it is, after all, a coffee shop-but few trek through the dregs of East Campus just for the joe. "Generally, what people come for is either the hookah or the milkshakes, which is funny since we are called the Coffeehouse, but most of what we sell are milkshakes," said recent graduate Andrea Marston, last year's general manager.

And fortunately for visitors, the prices are the one reasonable element to an otherwise wild, eccentric atmosphere. Chai milkshakes-which the staff boasts are the most popular item-are just $3.50, and a hookah that can be split among a group goes for just $7.