The Best Coffee Shops in the West

Founded by Ed Pawlak in Lihue, a community on Hawaii’s island of Kauai that’s also home to the island’s only airport, Aloha Roastery is a small local roastery and coffee shop that’s bright, clean, and full of Hawaii’s signature low-key, laid back spirit.

The coffee shop roasts its own beans from El Salvador, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, and elsewhere, and serves them in a classic lineup of drinks, including Americano, cortado, mocha, pour over, iced beige, and macadamia nut latte. A nice selection of pastries is also available.

Alpha Coffee was founded in 2011 by Carl Churchill, a 21-year combat veteran, and his wife Lori. The company started out as Lock-n-Load Java, selling exclusively online. In 2016, the company rebranded as Alpha Coffee, and the following year it opened its first coffee shop.

Supporting the armed forces is a core part of the coffee shop’s mission. With each batch of coffee roasted, the shop automatically sets aside a portion to send to deployed troops. A portion of the profits also goes to charities that give to the military community. The shop offers a wide variety of single origins as well as blends with military-inspired names like Dawn Patrol, Task Force Zulu, and Charlie Don’t Surf.

Founded in 2017 by Shane Levario and Stevie Hasemeyer inside a roll-up gate in an office park on a quiet corner of sunny Riverside, California, Arcade Coffee Roasters has since become one of the region’s most beloved roasteries.

If you can find it amongst the industrial businesses and warehouses, you’ll discover a chill, relaxed space with coffees roasted in-house as well as a wide variety of pastries and breakfast and brunch items like grain bowls, creamy cheese grits with bacon and eggs, breakfast burritos, and a cult-favorite sandwich with espresso-rubbed tri-tip, whole grain mustard aioli, American cheese, pickles, pickled onions, and arugula.

A.T. Oasis Coffee & Tea Shop imports Ethiopian specialty coffee exclusively, sourcing it from the Sidamo and Yirgacheffe regions, where the beans are grown at elevations between 4,600 and 7,000 feet.

Founded in 2013 by Eritrean-born Aisha Tedros and her husband, Abdul, A.T. Oasis starts with all-natural green coffee beans bought directly from farmers by Aisha, who then roasts them in small batches. It’s then served in a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony. Aisha also serves traditional Ethiopian snacks as well as a wide variety of teas, including chai made with all-natural spices imported from Eritrea.

Going strong since 1975 (making it a true pioneer in the world of craft coffee), Black Cup was founded as Café Del Mundo by Perry Merkel after traveling through Central America touring coffee farms. He started roasting his own coffee in a small shed, and as word got out and more people stopped by to get their first taste of fresh roasted coffee, business exploded.

Perry retired in 2011, and the new owners renamed it Black Cup, on a mission to serve “Extraordinary Coffee Best Served Black.” Their emphasis has always been on farm-to-cup transparency, roasting to promote origin characteristics, coffee education, and delivering the world’s finest coffees to Alaskans.

Denver’s Blue Sparrow is a classic neighborhood coffee shop. Its mission is to showcase coffees from some of America’s best roasters, featuring them on a rotating basis. Roasters the shop has featured have included Alabaster from Williamsport, Pennsylvania; Land & Water from Santa Rosa, California; and Tailored Coffee Roasters from Eugene, Oregon.

Kombucha, Japanese-style iced coffee (which is brewed hot and flash chilled over ice), and CBD-infused iced coffee are on tap, and pastries from local bakeries, including Black Box Bakery and Genova’s Biscotti, are on sale.

With two Oahu locations, Brew & Foam has won over the locals with its perfectly prepared menu of classic coffee drinks as well as new creations like the Undertow (espresso, coconut syrup, and half & half), Dawn Patrol (drip coffee, grass-fed butter, and cold-press coconut oil), and Haupia Mocha (espresso, cacao, steamed milk, and coconut whipped cream). The shops also offer a small selection of waffles, sandwiches, and pastries.

Buckin’ Brew Espresso was founded by the mother-daughter team of Kendra Chorniak and Abby VanValkenburg in 2017 inside a former gas station just outside Casper, Wyoming. The shop serves a full menu of hot, iced, and frozen espresso drinks, iced coffee and tea, cold-brewed coffee, hot chocolate, fruit smoothies, and other custom drinks (including the popular white chocolate mocha with caramel drizzle), as well as baked goods from a local bakery. For those really looking for a caffeine kick, there are also several specialty drinks made with Red Bull and flavored syrups.

This Lake Tahoe favorite, founded by Craig and Marlo Quillin and named after their son Clyde, is on a mission to provide the highest quality coffee available, from farm to cup. Clyde’s Coffee Roasting Company has partnered with Vournas Coffee Trading, a boutique coffee company, in order to provide direct-sourced, hand-picked organic and fair-trade coffee beans from fine specialty estates and co-ops.

Clyde’s website goes into exquisite detail on each type of coffee the company offers, from growing region to bean type to processing technique to tasting notes. Single estate coffees include Costa Rica “El Tigre,” Guatemala Huehuetenango SHB “Dulce Leonarda,” and Mexico Rancho San Francisco. You might have heard that drinking a good cup of coffee is like sipping a fine wine, and after a visit to Clyde’s, you’ll understand why.

Whereas most coffee shops either roast their own coffee or serve coffee sourced domestically, at Dayglow, they’re serving coffee from some of the world’s most renowned coffee roasters, including Father’s Coffee in the Czech Republic, Process Coffee in Northern Ireland, and La Cabra in Denmark. Each month the shop features several roasters

Dayglow also sells coffee by the bag, most of which comes from Coffee Collective in Denmark. The shop has also become popular for its creative coffee drinks and fresh vegan doughnuts.

It’s no small feat to be the best coffee shop in a city as coffee-obsessed as Seattle, but Elm Coffee Roasters, going strong in Pioneer Square since it was founded by Brendan Mullally in 2013, has a fair claim to the title. Mullally partners with producers and importers from around the world to source the highest-quality green beans on earth, and he roasts them on-site.

Brewed to order, the results are served with a smile in an inviting, high-ceilinged space. Offerings include Kenya Nyeri Gatugi AB (cranberry, baking spice, molasses), Colombia Adelino Urbano (apple raspberry, dulce de leche), and Guatemala Lazaro Costanza (lemon lime, stone fruit, caramel).

Located in Main Gate Square, a stone’s throw from the University of Arizona, Espresso Art Café draws inspiration from European cafés. Along with being a classic coffee shop, it’s also a hookah bar and full-service cocktail bar, and Playstations, Xboxes, and Nintendo Switches are also available to rent. So basically, there’s something for everybody, and it’s a popular hangout for students, tourists, and locals alike. 

Meet up with your friends during the daytime to sip a nitro cold brew or yerba mate and nibble a bagel with cream cheese, and come back after dark for a cocktail or glass of wine in the speakeasy in the back.

Downtown Albuquerque’s cozy and charming Espresso Fino is an espresso bar serving expertly prepared iced and hot coffee and espresso drinks. All coffee is locally roasted, certified organic, and Fair Trade. Owner Greg Flores can usually be found behind the counter pulling espresso shots himself, and he and his employees are all friendly and knowledgeable.

Ebon Coffee Collective has a cool, mellow vibe with white walls and plenty of greenery, and it sources its coffee exclusively from Montana-based roasters. The place also bakes a lineup of pastries, including plenty of gluten-free options. Other scratch-made offerings include homemade kombucha, hibiscus lime iced tea, and espresso and elderflower tonic, and there are weekly and monthly coffee bean subscriptions.

Housed in a sleek and rustic space with exposed beams in San Francisco, Four Barrel Coffee has forged relationships with farmers and mill workers in Latin America, Indonesia, and East Africa, to source the shop’s green coffee beans. They roast them in-house on a vintage German-made coffee roaster, and serve a variety of coffees by the cup and in specialty drinks. Offerings include Guatemalan Buena Vista, Ethiopian Worka Wuri, and Kenyan Gura espresso.

Rebekah and Wille Yli-Luoma began roasting coffee in Portland in 2009, with the idea that a great cup should highlight the distinct fruit flavors that are found in coffee. Today, they have three retail cafés and a roasting facility in the city, and they’ve built direct relationships with producers in Kenya, Ethiopia, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Brazil, and Guatemala, whom they visit multiple times every year. They travel to origin during and at the end of harvest times to show support, assist with quality control, and select the best crops.

Heart Coffee Roasters has a reputation for sourcing some of the best green coffee in the world, and during the roasting process, the focus is on even development throughout the bean to maximize perceived sweetness, without over-roasting or baking the coffee dry. This style of roasting results in pronounced fruit tones and richness with a juicy finish. Every bag of Heart coffee is tagged with a roast date and batch number. The end result? A cup of coffee that simply can’t be improved upon.

Prince Coffee was founded in 2016 in the Kenton neighborhood of Portland, but it proved to be so popular that it ended up moving into larger digs in Beaumont soon after. It’s a sunny quintessential neighborhood coffee shop, serving a rotating selection of coffees from Heart Coffee Roasters and Proud Mary, both small-batch roasters based in Portland. Along with classic coffee and espresso drinks, the shop is also making traditional stroopwafels by hand and serving a lineup of breakfast sandwiches, and there’s a thoughtfully curated retail selection.

A staple of Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood since 2011, Milstead & Co. is clean, spacious, and inviting and serves coffee from renowned roasters, including Stumptown, Intelligentsia, and Coava. Every coffee and espresso drink is made with care by the team of expert baristas, and they’re complemented by a nice selection of pastries from local bakeries.

“Beyond fair trade and direct trade… we are family trade,” proudly proclaims Peixoto Coffee Roasters. And indeed, the Peixoto family has been growing and harvesting coffee for at least 100 years on the family farm in Brazil, and today the farm is run by third-generation grower José Augusto Peixoto. 

They roast a variety of coffees from their own farm as well as from partners in Costa Rica, Ethiopia, and Colombia, and at the shop they sell them by the bag and serve them in expertly-made espresso drinks, pour-over and drip coffee, and seasonal specials. Be sure to enjoy yours with a fresh locally-made cinnamon roll.

Phin Smith is a warm and welcoming Garden Grove, California, coffee shop that specializes in Vietnamese coffee. Offerings include the District 1 Roast, made with Robusta beans grown in the central highlands of Vietnam, and the Saigon Blend, made with Central Highland Robusta balanced with Arabica.

There are also lots of specialty coffees and teas, including a lavender latte, English-style iced milk tea, and ice-blended coconut coffee. The shop’s Taiwanese sea salt coffee is also worth seeking out for those looking for something a little different.

A beautiful and rustic log cabin nestled in the cool pines of the Sacramento Mountains with spectacular views overlooking the Ruidoso River, Sacred Grounds Coffee & Tea House is one of the most picturesque coffee shops you’ll find anywhere. Along with great coffee, the shop also serves a full lineup of cocktails and a wide-ranging breakfast and lunch menu.

At the stylish, retro-inspired Slow by Slow, they’re serving up coffee from some of the finest small independent roasters in the country, including Proud Hound in Cincinnati, HEX in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Elm Coffee Roasters in Seattle.

The baristas are trained to bring out the very best flavor in each roast (they’re all sold individually as pour-over), and guests who fall in love with a specific roaster can also buy their beans by the bag. It’s a smart and creative way to support small local roasters while introducing Boise residents to coffees they wouldn’t be able to find otherwise.

Story Coffee Co. is located inside a ridiculously charming “tiny house,” and unlike most coffee shops, offers no Wi-Fi or places to plug in, so customers are encouraged to engage in conversation instead of burying their faces in a screen.

Founded by Don and Carissa Niemyer in 2015 after they visited more than 200 coffee shops in 45 states, Story Coffee roasts all its own coffee and turns them into delicious blends that the locals can’t get enough of. Even better, 5% of all revenues go toward feeding the local homeless population.

The small, minimalist Three Pines Coffee in the heart of Downtown Salt Lake City is the brainchild of Nick Price and Meg Frampton. While living in Los Angeles, the Salt Lake City natives decided on a lark to buy coffee equipment and move back to sell great coffee, and they haven’t looked back since.

Each day, they choose a single origin coffee to serve as their drip coffee, brewed in small batches on a Fetco brewer. As for espresso, they usually have one single origin and one blend on offer. They make their own almond milk and syrups in-house, and baked goods are brought in fresh daily from local bakeries Pie Party, Betony Traveling Cafe, and The Loaf. Thoughtfulness goes into every aspect of Three Pines, and you really can tell.

Vesta Coffee Roasters has a location in Las Vegas’ up-and-coming Downtown Arts District as well as one in Summerlin/Lakes, and both are vibrant and inviting. They source specialty coffees from around the world, working with trusted exporters, importers, and sometimes the farmers directly, and roast them fresh three times per week.

All the classic coffee and espresso drinks are well made, and specialty drinks include hazelnut-maple lattes, golden milk, and seasonal creations like the Aztec mocha with Dutch cacao, cinnamon, and guajillo chiles. There’s also a pleasing menu of pastries, tartines, and lunch fare.