There’s no shortage of cozy neighborhood coffee shops in New York City, welcoming in customers with frothy cappuccinos and friendly conversation. And while every New Yorker has their favorite corner spot, some cafes rise above the rest with expertly brewed cups of coffee and award-winning pastries. Here, we’ve rounded up our favorite places for a cup of coffee right now.
Read MoreThe Best Coffee Shops in New York City
Where to find expertly brewed cups of coffee in NYC
Clubhouse Cafe
This new coffee shop near Yankee Stadium that opened in January is operated by Bronx youth in conjunction with South Bronx UnitedIt serves as a workforce development program that helps young people develop skills. Coffee comes from Devoción and cookies, croissants, and muffins are baked at Mottley Kitchen in the South Bronx.
Plowshares Coffee
Plowshares started as a wholesale roasting company in upstate New York before opening its first coffee shop near Columbia University in 2014. The small coffee roaster sells drip coffee, espressos, cold brew, and other standard drinks. There is a second location in West Harlem.
Variety Coffee Roasters
Variety first started roasting coffee in 2014: It now has eight locations in the city, including this popular shop on the Upper East Side. The coffee brand is known for its nutty, chocolatey roasts, and you can now find its coffee at other cafes throughout the city, as well as at Three Decker diner in Greenpoint, run by Variety owner Gavin Compton.
St Kilda Coffee
St Kilda roasts its beans in Brooklyn and is known for fruity notes like pear, peach, boysenberry, and plum. The shop also carries beans from several well-known suppliers, including Sey, Passenger, and Little Wolf. St Kilda opened in Midtown in 2016. There is a second location in Chelsea.
La Cabra
La Cabra is one of the city’s best coffee shops right now. The lines at the original location in the East Village snake out the door during rush hour. Truth is, it’s worth it. This Danish import has excellent coffee, exquisite pastries, table service, and an appealing Scandinavian style. If only every day could start with a perfect cappuccino in an earthenware cup and a cardamom bun. There’s a second location in Soho.
Lê Phin
Named after the instrument used to brew coffee in Vietnam, Lê Phin opened last year. Find Vietnamese iced coffee, Vietnamese-style brewed hot coffee, as well as lattes that use culturally relevant ingredients like pandan and black sesame. The small, sunny storefront has a few seats inside.
Abraço
There’s nothing in coffee quite like Abraço, an East Village shop with so much personality it’s hard to take it in all at once. There’s the coffee, with wild-haired co-owner Jamie McCormick often working the bar. There are the pastries, such as co-owner Liz Quijada’s justifiably famous orange-scented olive oil cake. And there’s the scene, the chatty locals who, in the words of Frank Zappa, make this “the top freako watering hole and social HQ.”
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Coffee Project
Started in the East Village since 2015, Coffee Project has grown into a destination (for coffee nerds) with locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. The shop sells standard cafe drinks, plus seasonal pour-overs, deconstructed lattes, Nitro cold brew “flights,” and other drinks. The brand roasts its beans in Long Island City, Queens.
Devoción
This sprawling Williamsburg roastery and cafe is an outpost of a coffee roaster in Bogota, Colombia. The company prides itself on serving a fresh cup of coffee, and it claims that its raw beans arrive from Colombia within days of being harvested. Devoción also has locations in Downtown Brooklyn, Dumbo, Flatiron, and Midtown.
Suited
Suited in the Financial District works with some of the biggest names in New York roasting right now, including Sey and Little Wolf, along with a handful of international roasters whose beans are available from the shop. There is a full menu of standard cafe drinks but stick to a cup of espresso or drip to appreciate the thoughtful sourcing that’s happening here.
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Sey Coffee
A bright and airy sky-lit warehouse decorated with potted plants, Sey Coffee feels more West Coast than Bushwick. But it’s more than just a pretty space. Sey is regarded as one of the better microroasters in NYC. Founders Tobin Polk and Lance Schnorenberg favor a light, clean Nordic-style flavor profile highly regarded by the coffee cognoscenti.
Dayglow
Dayglow is a new coffee shop and bar that rolled in from Los Angeles this year. The shop is a multi-roaster cafe, meaning it carries coffee from more than one brand: Unusual for the category, the selection here ranges between 10 to 20 different coffee roasters at a time. It also roasts its own beans, which have milk chocolate, lychee, butterscotch, and mandarin notes.
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% Arabica
For the freshest of fresh-roasted coffee beans, it’s hard to beat % Arabica. The Kyoto-based import opened its first U.S. location in Brooklyn last year with a souped-up espresso machine, baked goods from Balthazar, and a “green bean corner” where customers can buy beans to be roasted on the spot in minutes.
Villager
Villager is an ambitious coffee shop masquerading as a laid-back neighborhood cafe. During the pandemic, the business opened on a quiet side street in Prospect Heights: It now has a following outside of the neighborhood. The draw is a thoughtful selection of coffee beans sourced from roasters like Sey, based in Bushwick, and Dayglow, a coffee company from Los Angeles.
Yafa Cafe
Cousins Ali Suliman and Hakim Sulaimani opened Yafa Cafe in 2019 to spotlight Yemeni coffee culture in Sunset Park. It’s still going strong as a neighborhood cornerstone where the Yemeni-rooted food is just as good as the assortment of coffees. The cousins also started to roast an in-house line of coffee during the pandemic, offering blends and Yemeni single-origin roasts for sale from the shop.