172 cafés in 52 citys. Places change: check opening hours before you go.
Alfred Peet opened his first store here on April 1, 1966, selling darker-roasted beans when most Americans drank canned coffee; it is often called the birthplace of American specialty coffee. A historical marker stands outside, and the shop still displays early roasting and brewing equipment.
Order: drip coffee (Major Dickason's blend) · cappuccino
💡 Look for the historical marker; Chez Panisse is a short walk away in the same Gourmet Ghetto.
Opened in 1929, Vittoria calls itself Boston's first Italian café. It spreads over several levels on Hanover Street, with bars and a cigar room.
Order: Cappuccino · Cannoli
💡 Open until midnight, so it works for a late espresso after dinner in the North End.
A doughnut shop called Open Kettle opened in Quincy in 1948; it became Dunkin' Donuts and the start of a global chain. The original site still operates, renovated with a retro look.
Order: Coffee · Doughnut
💡 About 15 minutes south of downtown Boston by car.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Established in 1980, Trident is a small, employee-owned bookstore and café in downtown Boulder, serving specialty coffee and tea among new and used books.
Order: latte · chai
💡 Near the west end of the Pearl Street pedestrian mall.
A 5.5-acre coffee farm worked by the Uchida family, Japanese immigrants who moved here in 1913, now an open-air museum of Kona farm life from 1920 to 1945. Costumed interpreters show the old mill (kuriba) and the drying racks (hoshidana), and the farm is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Order: Kona coffee tasting
💡 Open only Tuesdays and Fridays, 10am–2pm; adult admission is $20.
Founded in 1908, Philippe's claims to be the longest continuously operating restaurant in Los Angeles and one of the birthplaces of the French dip. It was famous for selling coffee for a few cents for decades, raising the price to 45 cents only in 2012.
Order: drip coffee · French dip sandwich
💡 Sawdust on the floor and communal tables; it is a short walk from Union Station.
Felipe Valls Sr. opened Versailles on Calle Ocho in 1971, and it became the gathering place for Miami's Cuban exile community and a stop for campaigning politicians. Its walk-up window, la ventanita, serves more than a thousand cafecitos a day.
Order: Cafecito · Colada (to share) · Cortadito · Pastelito de guayaba
💡 Order a colada at the window and share it in the tiny plastic cups, as locals do.
Started as a coffee stand in the French Market in 1862, it is the city's oldest coffee shop. The menu is still mostly café au lait made with chicory coffee and beignets under a pile of powdered sugar; its reopening after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was national news.
Order: Café au lait (with chicory) · Beignets
💡 The to-go window is usually faster than waiting for a table. Powdered sugar gets everywhere, so skip dark clothes.
Joseph Jurisch opened Morning Call in the French Market in 1870, eight years after Café du Monde. It moved to Metairie in 1974 and has served café au lait and beignets from Canal Boulevard since 2020.
Order: Café au lait · Beignets
A barber named Domenico Parisi opened Reggio on MacDougal Street in 1927, and the café says it was the first in America to serve cappuccino. The chrome-and-bronze espresso machine he bought, built in 1902, still sits in the room.
Order: Cappuccino · Cannoli
💡 Look for the 1902 machine near the counter; the small sidewalk tables fill fast on warm evenings.
Antonio Ferrara, an opera impresario, opened Café A. Ferrara in 1892 so Italians had somewhere to sip espresso and play cards after the opera. It calls itself America's first espresso bar and is run by the family's fifth generation.
Order: Espresso · Cannoli · Sfogliatella
Opened in 1961 by a Vienna-trained Hungarian baker across from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, it has long been a study hall for Columbia students. The Binioris family has run it since 1976 and kept the old recipes for strudel and linzer.
Order: Coffee · Strudel · Linzer torte
💡 Expect a line and slow, unhurried service; this is a place to sit with a book.
Antonio Veniero opened a small confectionery here in 1894, in what was then the East Village's Little Italy. The same family still runs it, and the café room has a stained-glass ceiling.
Order: Espresso · Cannoli · Cheesecake
💡 Take a number at the pastry counter for takeaway; sit in the back café room for espresso.
Duane Sorenson opened the first Stumptown here in 1999, in a former hair salon called The Hair Bender, which became the name of the company's best-known espresso blend. Stumptown is counted among the leaders of the third wave, known for paying farmers well above fair-trade prices.
Order: Hair Bender espresso · cold brew
The Cortez family opened Mi Tierra as a three-table café in Market Square in 1941. It is now a festive San Antonio landmark with its own panadería and strolling musicians.
Order: Coffee · Pan dulce
💡 Pick pan dulce at the bakery counter by the door.
The Buena Vista began serving Irish coffee on November 10, 1952, after travel writer Stanton Delaplane and owner Jack Koeppler worked to recreate a drink Delaplane had tried at Shannon Airport. It is credited with bringing Irish coffee to America and says it has poured more than 30 million since.
Order: Irish coffee
💡 It sits at the end of the Powell-Hyde cable car line, so pair it with a ride.
Giovanni Giotta, who emigrated from near Trieste, opened this North Beach café in 1956; it is described as the first espresso coffeehouse on the West Coast. Beat writers including Ferlinghetti, Kerouac and Ginsberg drank here, and Francis Ford Coppola worked on parts of The Godfather screenplay at its tables.
Order: cappuccino · espresso
💡 Take a seat at the mosaic-tiled tables outside; the café is a short walk from City Lights Bookstore.
Opened by Dave Olsen in May 1975 in an alley across from the University of Washington, Allegro is Seattle's oldest espresso bar. Olsen later developed Starbucks' signature espresso roast, and Howard Schultz called Allegro a prototype for what Starbucks became.
Order: espresso · cappuccino
💡 The entrance is in the alley behind University Way, not on the street.
Former Boeing engineer David Schomer and Geneva Sullivan started Vivace as a cart in 1988. Schomer is credited with developing and popularizing latte art in the United States, and his book on espresso technique influenced a generation of baristas.
Order: caffè latte · espresso (Dolce blend)
💡 Watch the baristas pour; the latte art here is the point.
Chuck Beek set up an espresso cart under the Seattle Center Monorail at Westlake Mall on December 1, 1980, one of the world's first espresso carts. It kicked off Seattle's coffee-cart craze and became a walk-up window in 1997.
Order: double-shot latte · chubby cookie
💡 Walk-up window only; take your cup to Westlake Park.
Gordon Bowker, Jerry Baldwin and Zev Siegl opened the first Starbucks on March 30, 1971, selling whole-bean coffee, tea and spices rather than espresso drinks. It started at 2000 Western Avenue and moved to this Pike Place Market storefront about five years later, where it keeps its early look under historic design rules.
Order: Pike Place Roast · whole beans only sold here
💡 Lines are long by mid-morning; go right at opening.
Founded in 1905, the Columbia is Florida's oldest continuously operating restaurant and is still run by the same family after five generations. It is also the oldest Spanish restaurant in the United States, serving Spanish and Cuban food in the old cigar-making district.
Order: Café con leche · Cuban coffee
💡 The building fills a city block; peek into the tiled dining rooms.
Juan Moré, a Spanish soldier who learned Cuban bread in Cuba, founded La Segunda in Ybor City in 1915. Four generations later it bakes thousands of palmetto-leaf-scored loaves daily, and locals stop in for café con leche and Cuban toast.
Order: Café con leche · Cuban toast
Alaska's own coffee company began as a single espresso cart in 1984 and now runs about 14 locations, mostly in Alaska. It has been named Alaska's best coffee shop.
Order: latte · drip coffee
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A family-run North End espresso bar where the TVs show Serie A and Champions League matches, and old men and fans stand at the counter with espresso from early morning.
Order: Espresso · Cannoli
💡 Busiest and loudest during big Italian football matches.
Michael Mercogliano opened his bakery on Hanover Street in 1946, and its cannoli became a Boston ritual for locals and visitors alike.
Order: Cannoli · Espresso
💡 Lines are long on weekends but move quickly.
Ibrahim Alhasbani, from a Yemeni coffee-farming family, founded Qahwah House in Dearborn in 2017. It serves Yemeni coffee spiced with cardamom and ginger, shared from pots into small cups, and has grown into a chain across the US.
Order: Adeni chai · Yemeni coffee · Khaliat al nahl (honey bread)
💡 Yemeni cafés stay open late and are busiest in the evening.
A large coffee estate on Kauai's south shore with a visitor center and café where you can taste the farm's coffees among the orchards.
Order: estate coffee tasting
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
The Greenwell family farm carries the name of Henry Nicholas Greenwell, the English merchant who helped establish Kona coffee as a recognized brand in the late 1800s. Visitors can walk the farm and taste Kona coffee.
Order: 100% Kona coffee tasting
💡 Combine with the Kona Coffee Living History Farm a few miles south.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Open since 2003 in downtown Mesa, this coffeehouse serves locally micro-roasted coffee. The favorite is the Gold Rush: a double espresso with half-and-half and a hint of vanilla.
Order: Gold Rush
A Little Italy pastry café dating to 1891, with a pressed-tin ceiling, tiled floor and chandelier kept from its early years.
Order: Espresso · Cannoli
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Turkish table-service café on Arthur Avenue, the Bronx's Little Italy, with Turkish-style coffee drinks, Viennese cappuccinos and pastries.
Order: Turkish coffee · Viennese cappuccino
💡 Combine with lunch on Arthur Avenue.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
La Prima has roasted Italian-style coffee in Pittsburgh since 1988, and its Strip District bar is run in the manner of an Italian espresso bar.
Order: Espresso · Cappuccino · Sfogliatella
💡 Combine with a Saturday morning walk through the Strip District markets.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Northwest Portland coffeehouse since 1994, with house-roasted coffee, local art and lamp-lit corners that get cozier the deeper you go. Willamette Week calls it the place for westside night owls.
Order: latte · drip coffee
💡 Open late, which is rare in Portland.
Open since 1980 in a 1902 house said to be haunted, this is one of Portland's oldest coffeehouses. Its composer-named tables play tricks: one shakes, one slowly rises, and one disappears into the wall.
Order: coffee with dessert · mocha
💡 Evenings only and no sign out front; look for the old house, and visit the upstairs bathroom.
Andrea Spella started as a food cart in 2006 and opened this downtown shop in 2010. With a marble counter, a standing ledge and no seats, it is the closest thing in Portland to an Italian espresso bar.
Order: espresso · macchiato
💡 Drink standing at the bar; there are no seats.
Attached to a Powell's Books branch on Hawthorne, this café has been around since the late 1990s and keeps its scruffy old-Portland charm. The coffee is modern, from Puff Coffee beans.
Order: big mug of drip · latte
💡 Browse Powell's on Hawthorne next door.
A North Park roaster and café named for the southern Italian region, focused on Italian-style espresso. It roasts on site at its 30th Street home.
Order: espresso · cappuccino
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Named for Anne Rice's vampire novels, this University Heights coffeehouse is open 24 hours a day. Faux chandeliers, a big corner couch and 1990s décor draw students, night-shift workers and night owls.
Order: espresso drink · BLT sandwich
💡 Good for a late-night coffee when everything else is closed.
A neighborhood coffeehouse where people come less for the coffee than to share a couch with a stranger from a different generation or study over open textbooks. It has the feel of an old-school campus hangout.
Order: drip coffee
A family-run North Beach roaster since 1935 and one of the oldest artisan roasters in North America. Luciano Repetto runs it from the same storefront his father did, and the shop still sells just one light roast, one dark roast and a decaf.
Order: whole beans (dark roast) · whole beans (light roast)
💡 This is a bean shop, not a sit-down café; buy a pound to take home and get your espresso at Caffe Trieste nearby.
Emanuele Bizzarri, a third-generation roaster whose father Umberto roasted in Italy, founded Caffè Umbria in 2002. The 2005 flagship mixes Pioneer Square brick with Italian tile and has standing tables and an espresso machine from Italy.
Order: espresso at the bar · cappuccino
💡 Stand at the bar like in Italy; it's on the pedestrian Occidental Avenue.
Mike McConnell founded Caffè Vita in Queen Anne in 1995 and was an early advocate of buying directly from farmers. The Capitol Hill flagship, in the building that once housed Cafe Paradiso, has been its café, roastery and office since 1999.
Order: espresso · drip coffee
A tiny walk-up espresso window under Pike Place Market's Public Market sign, in a former service room in Post Alley near the Gum Wall. Lore says the space is haunted by Arthur Goodwin, an early market manager.
Order: Salted Nut Latte · Mystery Mocha
💡 Window service only; it's steps from the Gum Wall.
An old-school Fremont roaster founded in 1993 that still roasts dark, with earthy and chocolate notes and no trendy specialty drinks. There is no wifi, but there is local art and a neighborhood crowd.
Order: drip coffee · espresso
Opened in 1997 as a place for art, conversation and community, Zeitgeist has been in its exposed-brick Pioneer Square home since 2000. It hosts rotating local art and film screenings.
Order: macchiato · almond croissant
💡 Close to the Klondike Gold Rush museum and King Street Station.
A Turkish coffee shop near Georgetown serving Turkish coffee alongside spinach börek and cheese-filled poğaça.
Order: Turkish coffee · Börek
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
An Ethiopian-run café on H Street, in a city with one of the largest Ethiopian communities in the US. It roasts Ethiopian coffee, including a smooth light roast and harder-to-find darker roasts.
Order: Ethiopian coffee · Macchiato
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Virginia-Highland café known for Vietnamese egg coffee, its sweet foam finished with a blowtorch.
Order: Egg coffee
An Atlanta roaster whose first café, 'The Box', is a compact bar at Westside Provisions District.
Order: Espresso · Pour-over
An Old Fourth Ward café and shop serving small-batch roasts and house-made breakfast empanadas.
Order: Espresso · Breakfast empanada
A Caribbean café on historic Auburn Avenue, near the Martin Luther King Jr. birth home, with drinks like a spiced plantain latte.
Order: Spiced plantain latte
💡 It is a short walk from the MLK National Historical Park.
An Atlanta roaster focused on Indian coffee, with drinks built on South Asian flavors such as a gulab jamun latte.
Order: Gulab jamun latte · Indian filter-style coffee
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Spiller Park has served coffee since 2015, with a counter inside Ponce City Market, a converted Sears warehouse on the BeltLine. The name honors Spiller Park, the old ballpark where the Atlanta Crackers played.
Order: Latte · Cold brew
💡 Walk it out on the BeltLine's Eastside Trail.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Founded in Austin in 2006, Medici has served the city for nearly two decades and roasts single-origin, sustainably sourced beans.
Order: Cappuccino · Pour-over
A family-run coffee trailer in East Austin, known for its brown sugar miso latte.
Order: Brown sugar miso latte
💡 Seating is outdoors.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
An industrial, plant-filled East Austin café focused on careful espresso.
Order: Espresso · Cappuccino
An East Austin walk-up known for playful signature drinks, such as a cortado made with cereal milk.
Order: Signature cortado · Espresso
💡 This location closes in the early afternoon.
One of the original names in Texas third-wave coffee, Houndstooth now runs cafés in Austin and Dallas; North Lamar is its Austin home base.
Order: Espresso · Pour-over
A Mexican coffee and heirloom-corn café; its atole cortado blends espresso with atole made from nixtamalized corn.
Order: Atole cortado · Mexican coffee
A bright coffee bar with a workshop and lab space for classes, near the Washington Monument and the Walters Art Museum.
Order: Pour-over · Affogato
💡 Pair it with a visit to the Walters Art Museum nearby.
A nonprofit café near the UC Berkeley campus that supports the refugee community by training refugees as baristas and helping them into jobs. The name refers to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
Order: latte · cardamom latte
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
George Howell is one of the pioneers of American specialty coffee. His flagship café opened in 2016 in the Godfrey Hotel at Downtown Crossing, with a room for tastings and classes.
Order: Single-origin pour-over · Espresso
A small standing espresso bar in the Leather District from a local specialty roaster, a short walk from South Station.
Order: Espresso · Cortado
💡 Handy for a quick coffee before a train from South Station.
A small café facing Boston Common that Boston.com readers voted the area's best coffee shop in 2025.
Order: Latte · Pastry
💡 Take your cup across the street onto Boston Common.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Founded in 2007, OZO is Boulder's home-grown roaster, built on service, quality and sustainability. It sources competition-winning microlots from Central America.
Order: espresso · pour-over
💡 Right on the Pearl Street Mall.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Charleston's leading specialty roaster, formerly known as Black Tap Coffee; the new name marks its 'second state'. It says it pays producers many times fair-trade minimums for its microlots.
Order: Pour-over · Espresso
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Chicago roaster where every café has its own name and look, from the Mothership to Star Lounge in Ukrainian Village.
Order: Espresso · Seasonal latte
Doug Zell and Emily Mange founded Intelligentsia in Chicago in 1995, and it became one of the roasters that defined American third-wave coffee. The Lakeview coffeebar on Broadway is still one of its three Chicago cafés.
Order: Black Cat espresso · Pour-over
A Chicago roaster built on transparent pricing for producers, roasting on vintage equipment. It made the World's 100 Best Coffee Shops list in 2026.
Order: Espresso · Filter coffee
A Cincinnati roaster with a café in Over-the-Rhine, the city's historic brick neighborhood.
Order: Latte · Drip coffee
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Columbus bakery and coffee shop with cafés around the city; this one is in Italian Village.
Order: Latte · Pastry
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Stauf's has roasted coffee in Columbus since 1988, making it one of the city's longest-running roasters.
Order: Drip coffee
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Corvus's South Broadway flagship feels like a minimalist art gallery. It is known for nitro cold brew, seasonal tonics and the Morning Slam: a double espresso with a cup of drip on the side.
Order: Morning Slam · nitro cold brew
One of the first hangouts in the River North (RiNo) arts district, Crema brews from a roster of more than 20 local and national roasters. Its kitchen is known for creative specials.
Order: guest-roaster espresso · breakfast special
💡 Good base for walking RiNo's murals.
A Denver roaster since 2011 whose Sunnyside flagship is an artsy, colorful space with a big patio. It offers a wide range of single-origin coffees.
Order: single-origin pour-over · sweet potato latte
A nonprofit craft coffeehouse and apprenticeship program in Elyria-Swansea that trains young adults from surrounding neighborhoods in the craft and business of coffee.
Order: latte · drip coffee
Leon Grodski Barrera and Areli Barrera Grodski started Cocoa Cinnamon in 2010 with $75 to their name, and opened this first café in 2013. The menu draws on coffee, chocolate and tea traditions from around the world; their Little Waves roastery supplies the beans.
Order: Cortado · Hot chocolate
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Brett Smith and Fred Houk founded Counter Culture in Durham in 1995, roasting blends for local restaurants. It became a pioneer of direct-trade sourcing, and its headquarters roastery hosts free public tastings and classes.
Order: Free public tasting
💡 Check the events calendar for free 'Tastings at Ten' and classes; it is a training center, not an everyday café.
Mothership roasts in-house and supplies many Las Vegas cafés and restaurants. Its Henderson café is the original home base.
Order: espresso · pour-over
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A small Kona estate on the slopes above Kailua-Kona with a tasting room where visitors can sample its 100% Kona coffees.
Order: 100% Kona coffee tasting
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Waikiki café devoted to 100% Kona coffee from craft roasters in Hawaii, with estate coffees such as Hualalai and Mauna Loa.
Order: 100% Kona espresso · pour-over
💡 Lines form in the morning; it is inside the International Market Place.
Messenger grew out of three local coffee companies joining forces in 2013. Its flagship is a multi-floor café and roastery with a rooftop patio and fireplace.
Order: Pour-over · Latte
💡 Head up to the rooftop patio.
Founder Andy Sprenger is a two-time U.S. Brewers Cup champion and Q Grader, and this roastery and tasting room just west of Denver reflects that care. The 2026 Global Coffee Awards named Sweet Bloom the best roaster in the U.S. and Canada.
Order: pour-over · espresso
💡 About 15 minutes west of downtown Denver.
A popular Arts District hangout with Latin American influences, known for its lavender and coconut turmeric lattes and weekend brunch. Its sister company Take It Easy Roasters supplies the beans.
Order: lavender latte · cortado
💡 Visit during First Friday, the Arts District's monthly street fair.
An airy, art-filled café east of the Fremont Street casinos, known for precise pour-overs of single-origin coffee. The food menu runs from loco moco to avocado toast.
Order: single-origin pour-over · loco moco
💡 A good escape from the Strip; about 15 minutes by car.
A Las Vegas roaster built on sustainably sourced green coffee, with its roastery in downtown's Arts District. The daily drip rotates, and the macadamia almond latte is a local favorite.
Order: macadamia almond latte · drip coffee
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A breezy blond-wood shop on Melrose whose founder was named best barista at the 2024 U.S. Coffee Championships. Seasonal drinks change often.
Order: seasonal latte · espresso
This Echo Park corner café looks like a sunlit ceramics studio and grew from a coffee brand popular with LA's creative crowd. Vintage records and an easygoing feel match the light-roast coffee.
Order: pour-over · latte
A small coffee bar in Chinatown's Far East Plaza run by a former biochemist, who is often the only barista. He approaches coffee scientifically, down to using different types of water.
Order: espresso · seasonal signature drink
💡 Expect a short wait; drinks are made one at a time.
Chicago roaster Intelligentsia opened its first store outside Chicago here at Sunset Junction on August 17, 2007. The coffeebar helped bring third-wave coffee to Los Angeles.
Order: espresso · pour-over
A quiet Highland Park café where baristas brew from a menu of about ten pour-overs while customers browse shelves of Japanese coffee filters and gear. Its sibling, Loquat, is in Cypress Park.
Order: pour-over
A calm, beige-toned café in Los Feliz known for carefully chosen light roasts. There is a second, larger Maru in the Arts District.
Order: pour-over · black sesame latte
A stripped-down coffee counter steps from the Venice boardwalk that has grown to Culver City and even Tokyo, plus a coffee van at the Venice Farmers Market. Its founding coffee lead won latte art championships.
Order: latte · cortado
💡 Walk two minutes to Venice Beach and the boardwalk.
A sleek Echo Park shop for people who care about details; its menu lists brewing notes in fine print. There is a second location in Hollywood.
Order: pour-over · espresso
An Iraqi-influenced café in Studio City (with a Silver Lake sibling) where the best order is traditional coffee brewed in hot sand. Creative drinks include fig matcha lattes and espresso tonics with apricot.
Order: sand-brewed coffee · fig matcha latte
Quills roasts all its coffee on East Main Street in Louisville and serves it at this café.
Order: Espresso · Pour-over
Panther opened its first café and roastery in Wynwood in 2010, among the city's first specialty roasters, and now has shops across Miami and beyond.
Order: Espresso · Cold brew
💡 Pair it with a walk past the Wynwood murals.
Colectivo was founded in Milwaukee in 1993 as Alterra Coffee Roasters. Its lakefront café occupies the 1888 Milwaukee River Flushing Station, with a big patio facing Lake Michigan.
Order: Drip coffee · Breakfast
💡 Sit on the patio for the lake view.
Stone Creek's roastery and headquarters downtown includes a café, so you can drink coffee where it is roasted. The company is a certified B Corp.
Order: Pour-over · Latte
💡 Ask about roastery tours.
A Minneapolis specialty roaster with cafés in Northeast, on East Lake Street in Longfellow, and in St. Paul.
Order: Espresso · Filter coffee
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Minneapolis roaster with cafés across the Twin Cities; this is its Northeast café.
Order: Espresso · Pour-over
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Nashville café group that sets out to blend art and commerce and to support locally made goods; this is its East Nashville café.
Order: Pour-over · Latte
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A zero-waste roaster and café on the edge of downtown, focused on coffee education.
Order: Pour-over · Cortado
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Nashville all-day café with several locations; this one is in the walkable 12South neighborhood.
Order: Latte · Breakfast
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Geoffrey Meeker started roasting in his laundry room in 2012 and delivered fresh bags around town in a small yellow vintage truck. The yellow trucks became the brand, and French Truck now has cafés across the South.
Order: Iced coffee · Cortado
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A laid-back Uptown café that serves coffee from its own roaster, Hey Coffee Co.
Order: Drip coffee · Cold brew
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Abraço began in 2007 as a closet-sized espresso counter on East 7th Street and moved across the street to a larger room in 2016. Its dark, chocolatey espresso and olive oil cake are East Village fixtures.
Order: Espresso · Olive oil cake · Cured olive cookie
An Inwood café that roasts Ethiopian beans in small batches and hosts community events, at the top of Manhattan.
Order: Ethiopian pour-over · Latte
💡 Pair it with a walk in Inwood Hill Park.
Caroline Bell and Chris Timbrell opened the first Café Grumpy here in 2005. The Greenpoint shop later played the café where Ray worked on HBO's Girls.
Order: Espresso · Drip coffee
💡 Some Grumpy cafés limit laptops, so plan to talk rather than work.
César Martin Vega, whose family farms coffee in Nicaragua, started Café Integral as a pop-up and opened this Nolita shop in 2016. It serves only Nicaraguan coffees from producers he works with directly.
Order: Pour-over · Americano
Devoción imports green coffee from Colombia and roasts it in this Williamsburg café, aiming to brew beans within weeks of harvest. The room has a long skylight and a living wall of Colombian plants.
Order: Colombian pour-over · Cortado
💡 Come in daylight to see the skylit plant wall.
A Japanese kissaten in the East Village that brews siphon coffee by day alongside omurice and sandos, then turns into a whisky bar at night.
Order: Siphon coffee · Omurice · Hotcakes
💡 It is small and takes reservations on Resy.
Siblings Jonathan and Gabrielle Rubinstein opened the first Joe on this Greenwich Village corner in 2003. The tiny room is nearly unchanged, and Amy Sedaris sold her cupcakes here in the first week.
Order: Cortado · Drip coffee
💡 There are only a few seats; take your cup around the corner to Washington Square Park.
The New York counter of the Danish roaster La Cabra, known for carefully made light-roast coffee and cardamom buns that draw a steady line.
Order: Filter coffee · Cardamom bun
💡 Go early before the buns sell out.
Partners started roasting in 2012 and this Williamsburg café is its original flagship: high ceilings, big windows and long communal tables.
Order: Flat white · Batch brew
A skylit Bushwick warehouse café from one of the country's most respected light roasters. Food & Wine named it the best coffee shop in America in 2019.
Order: Filter coffee · Espresso
💡 The menu rotates; ask the bar which coffee is new this month.
Variety opened its first shop on Graham Avenue in 2008 and grew into a small Brooklyn roaster with cafés across the borough.
Order: Cappuccino · Iced coffee
Thu Pham co-founded Philadelphia's first Vietnamese specialty roaster in 2018 and opened this Kensington café in 2021. It roasts beans from Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia on site.
Order: Cà phê sữa đá · Egg coffee
Evan Inatome started Elixr in 2010 and moved into this narrow Rittenhouse side-street café in 2012. It helped bring lighter-roasted specialty coffee to Center City.
Order: Pour-over · Cortado
Todd Carmichael and JP Iberti founded La Colombe in Rittenhouse in 1994; the company later popularized the canned draft latte. Its Fishtown flagship is a refurbished warehouse with a roastery, bakery and bar.
Order: Draft latte · Espresso
💡 There is no Wi-Fi here, by design.
A Philadelphia specialty roaster with neighborhood cafés; the Catharine Street shop is a corner café in Graduate Hospital.
Order: Espresso · Pour-over
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Cartel is the Arizona roaster that led the state's specialty coffee scene, with more than a dozen cafés across Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale and Tucson. The downtown Phoenix café is the easiest to reach for visitors.
Order: espresso · cold brew
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Humboldt neighborhood fixture since 2004 and, with Heart, one of the cafés credited with putting Portland on the third-wave map. It has the feel of a 1990s coffeehouse with modern standards.
Order: espresso · cortado
Matt Higgins founded Coava in 2008. Its Portland flagship appeared on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee when Jerry Seinfeld visited with Fred Armisen.
Order: single-origin pour-over · espresso
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Mary Allen Lindemann and her partner opened Coffee By Design on Congress Street in 1994, when many storefronts there were empty. Its coffeehouse and roastery is now on Diamond Street in East Bayside.
Order: Drip coffee · Latte
A small downtown café with a hand-painted plywood sign and a DIY spirit that has lasted more than 16 years. It roasts its own beans, bakes its own pastries and plays vinyl.
Order: pour-over · house-baked pastry
Wille and Rebekah Yli-Luoma founded Heart in 2009, and this Burnside café, with its black Probat roaster in view, is the original. It is known for light-roast espresso and Scandinavian minimalism.
Order: light-roast espresso · pour-over
💡 No wifi here.
A colorful 'coffee lab' known for inventive lattes such as the Oregon Latte, made with hops, dulce de leche and sea salt. The original Belmont shop was followed by a downtown location in 2019.
Order: Oregon Latte · Hug Latte
Melbourne's Proud Mary opened its first U.S. outpost on Alberta Street in 2017. It pairs specialty coffee with an Australian-style brunch and once made headlines for selling a $150 cup.
Order: flat white · ricotta pancakes
💡 Weekend brunch lines are long; go early.
Christopher Hall and Emma Mansanti founded this Central Eastside roaster in 2018. It specializes in experimental processing, including coffees fermented with fruit, and was ranked among the World's 100 Best Coffee Shops in 2026.
Order: experimental pour-over · espresso
A Portland roaster with two cafés: this bakery café on Congress Street and a roastery café on Anderson Street.
Order: Drip coffee · Pastry
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Joseph Nazir started Tōv in 2015 in a red double-decker bus and moved into a building in late 2023. The signature is Egyptian coffee with cardamom, brewed in a copper pot set in hot sand.
Order: Egyptian coffee (sand-brewed) · cardamom Americano
A Providence specialty roaster whose café sits off the lobby of The Dean hotel downtown.
Order: Espresso · Pour-over
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Blanchard's has roasted coffee in Richmond since 2005. Its Broad Street café adds coffee education, more seating and a patio.
Order: Pour-over · Latte
A Richmond roaster whose café sits on a side street in the Fan District, among the city's best-known specialty coffee stops.
Order: Espresso · Pour-over
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Sean Kohmescher founded Temple in 2005 after time in Indonesia, where the temples inspired his idea of a café as a community gathering place; he was also its first barista. It has grown to nine coffeehouses and its own roastery.
Order: espresso · pour-over
💡 The K Street café is open until 10pm, later than most specialty shops.
John Piquet's tiny shop calls itself Salt Lake City's first micro-roaster and siphon bar. He brews coffee in glass siphons, and chefs including a three-Michelin-star chef have praised his work.
Order: siphon coffee
💡 Book a siphon coffee experience ahead; hours are short and split around lunch.
Local Coffee opened in 2009 and is often called the birthplace of San Antonio's specialty coffee scene.
Order: Cortado · Pour-over
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
The original café of one of San Diego's best-known specialty roasters, named for La Jolla's Bird Rock neighborhood where it sits. It has since opened cafés around the city, including Little Italy.
Order: espresso · pour-over
💡 Bird Rock's tide pools and coastline are a short walk west.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A North Park café serving traditional Kurdish coffee, which comes unfiltered with fine grounds settled at the bottom. Baristas will warn first-timers about how it is drunk.
Order: Kurdish coffee
💡 Let the grounds settle and stop before the last sip.
Provecho roasts beans for many of the best cafés in Logan Heights and Barrio Logan, and this is its own café. The piloncillo latte, made with a house syrup of Mexican cane sugar, is the drink to get.
Order: piloncillo latte
💡 Pair with a walk past the murals of Chicano Park nearby.
Torque is about chasing the perfect pour in a nearly scientific way. Coffee lovers come to compare espresso shots, and a four-quadrant chart helps you choose between classic and modern roasts.
Order: espresso flight · pour-over
A small Outer Sunset café a few blocks from Ocean Beach, the first of what is now a string of Andytown shops around the city. Its best-known drink is the Snowy Plover, named after the little shorebird of the nearby beach.
Order: Snowy Plover
💡 Walk to Ocean Beach afterward; bring a jacket, it is often foggy.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Blue Bottle was founded by James Freeman in Oakland in 2002 as a small-batch roaster and became one of the leading names of third-wave coffee. This tiny walk-up kiosk on an alley in Hayes Valley is one of its early San Francisco outposts.
Order: New Orleans-style iced coffee · cappuccino
💡 Order at the window and walk to Patricia's Green park a block away.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
The first café to bring Yemeni coffee culture to San Francisco, ahead of a wave of newer Yemeni coffeehouses. Its namesake delah is a pot of spiced coffee.
Order: delah (spiced Yemeni coffee pot) · Adeni chai
Equator, a Bay Area roaster and certified B Corporation working since 1995, runs this café in the Round House at the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge. It is the most scenic coffee stop for anyone walking or cycling the bridge.
Order: latte · drip coffee
💡 Get a cup before you walk the bridge; the plaza is windy, so dress in layers.
Founded in 2008, Four Barrel roasts its own beans in the Mission and was one of the early leaders of the city's third-wave scene. The café is known for not offering free wifi or laptop power.
Order: espresso · pour-over
💡 Leave the laptop at home; this is a place to talk or watch the roaster.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A tiny South Beach shop that stocks some of the world's most sought-after guest roasters, rotating often. Pastries come from local bakeries such as Dynamo Donut and Saltwater Bakeshop.
Order: guest-roaster pour-over · espresso
💡 Near Oracle Park; handy before a Giants game.
Andrew Barnett's Linea is the roaster behind many Bay Area coffee programs, and Barnett is regarded as one of the city's espresso masters. This roastery café near Mission Bay is the place to taste it at the source.
Order: espresso
JoEllen Depakakibo, a former Blue Bottle manager, has run this colorful Bernal Heights café for about twelve years. It is friendly and inventive, with guest pour-overs from roasters such as Santa Cruz's Cat and Cloud.
Order: seasonal specialty drink · pour-over
💡 Combine with a walk up Bernal Heights Park for city views.
Eileen Hassi Rinaldi founded Ritual in 2005, and it became one of the cafés that defined San Francisco's third wave along with Blue Bottle and Four Barrel. The company has bought coffee directly from farmers since 2007, when it was still a one-café operation.
Order: espresso · single-origin pour-over
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Kevin Bohlin's Saint Frank is one of the city's most respected specialty cafés; Eater SF compares it to Dungeness crab, something nothing else replaces when the moment is right. The Russian Hill café on Polk Street is the company's home address, with newer shops in the Inner Sunset and SoMa.
Order: cappuccino · espresso
Sightglass is a San Francisco roaster whose 7th Street location in SoMa is its large warehouse café and roastery. Its other cafés include shops on 20th Street and Divisadero.
Order: cappuccino · pour-over
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Bryan Overstreet and Reef Bessette's original café sits near the top of Nob Hill, a short climb from Chinatown. It has grown into one of the city's most talked-about specialty roasters, with a second shop on Balboa Street.
Order: espresso · pour-over
💡 A good stop on the Powell cable car route.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Santa Cruz roaster whose bright neighborhood café sits near Pleasure Point. Its beans have become respected enough to appear as guest coffees in San Francisco shops such as Pinhole.
Order: espresso · pour-over
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Colby Barr and Ryan O'Donovan opened Verve in Pleasure Point in November 2007. It now has cafés across California and in Japan, but this surf-town shop near the 41st Avenue break is the original.
Order: Streetlevel espresso · flash brew
💡 Pleasure Point's surf break is a few blocks away; good for watching surfers with a cup.
Santa Fe's leading specialty roaster runs three cafés; Lupe is its downtown spot, tucked off Guadalupe Street. The original café, Lena, is in a midtown neighborhood, and the flagship, Red, is in an old auto service station.
Order: espresso · pour-over
💡 Walkable from the Plaza and the Railyard.
A Bull Street coffee house that hosts artist receptions on First Fridays, plus courtyard fire pits and live music on Saturdays.
Order: Latte
💡 Come Saturday evening for the courtyard fire pits.
An Australian-style café on Bull Street in Savannah's historic district, a short walk from Forsyth Park.
Order: Flat white
💡 Weekend brunch gets busy; coffee to go is quick.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A small Capitol Hill shop with a record collection, comics and magazines, using beans from rotating local roasters. It is known for its espresso tonic.
Order: espresso tonic · cortado
Owner Ash Day modeled this Pioneer Square café on her time as a barista in Copenhagen, and it serves beans from Denmark's Coffee Collective. The room is light and Scandinavian in feel.
Order: filter coffee · espresso
💡 Near Lumen Field; busy before games.
A Capitol Hill café known for layered signature drinks such as the Lush Life, which mixes espresso with almond milk, orange blossom honey and grapefruit.
Order: Lush Life · espresso
Nghia Bui and Yenvy Pham opened Seattle's first Vietnamese coffee roastery in Little Saigon in January 2021. They roast Vietnamese-grown beans on site and are known for creative drinks.
Order: cà phê brûlée (coffee with torched egg cream) · cà phê chuối (caramelized banana, coconut)
A Fremont multi-roaster café down the hill from the Fremont Troll, pouring beans from roasters such as Heart, Kuma and Sweet Bloom. It is a favorite of Seattle's coffee professionals.
Order: V60 pour-over · espresso
💡 Combine with a visit to the Fremont Troll.
Storyville started on Bainbridge Island in 2006 and opened its flagship upstairs in Pike Place Market's Corner Market building in 2013. It is a quiet perch above the market crowds.
Order: latte · chocolate cake
💡 Look for the stairs inside the Corner Market; window seats overlook the market.
A Capitol Hill staple since 2000, Victrola's Pike Street flagship is a café, roastery and training room. Eater noted that many Seattle coffee people got their start here.
Order: espresso · drip coffee
Blueprint opened its first coffee bar and roastery on Delmar in 2013 and has since added more bars around St. Louis.
Order: Espresso · Pour-over
A St. Louis specialty roaster with cafés around the city and public cuppings at its roastery; the DeMun café sits on a quiet neighborhood street.
Order: Latte · Drip coffee
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A small South City café that roasts light single-origin coffees on site and describes itself as a safe space for coffee enthusiasts.
Order: Single-origin pour-over
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Tucson roaster rooted in the Sonoran Desert, with blends such as Devil's Claw named for a desert plant. The same team also runs Bar Crisol.
Order: Devil's Claw espresso · pour-over
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
Billed as the first Indonesian coffee shop in the city, Dua makes lattes sweetened with condensed milk and serves Indonesian snacks.
Order: Kopi susu
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.