“Good” Coffee Shops in New York City
Seven years ago, literally no one in New York even drank coffee, which was exclusively consumed and commented on by snobs on the West Coast, before the Cascadian Subduction Zone and drought forced everyone to move to Kansas. Now, through the miracle of trade, there is fancy — or fancy-seeming — coffee in every neighborhood in New York City, and even in some of its most miserable suburbs. Some of this Fancy Coffee is Very Good*! Most of it is not, although a number of diplomatic guides to good coffee in New York might make it seem otherwise. What follows is a proper categorization of most of the city’s “good” coffee shops — whether they are Actually Good, Perfectly Okay, or In Fact Bad — listed in no particular order. (This list was last updated on March 3rd.)
Very Good Shops
Everyman Espresso (but the West Broadway location is the best)
Black Fox
Culture Espresso (not always, unless you get a cookie)
Parlor Coffee (quality has slightly dipped, but I think so anyway!)
Marlow & Sons (the counter, obviously; perhaps the best selection of coffee in NY right now)
Little Collins (especially if you get the food, but Australians)
Abraco (there’s a gigantic new space that I haven’t been to yet, but I’m sure it’s still v chill)
Budin (probably stick to the Nordic coffee, but watch the roast dates?)
Voyager Espresso (but Australians)
Perfectly Okay Shops
Any Variety
Any Sweetleaf
Any Stumptown
Any Intelligentsia
Any Blue Bottle
Any Joe
Any Toby’s Estate (however, Australians)
Any Ninth Street Espresso
Supercrown Coffee Roasters
Underline
Propeller Coffee (so cozy)
Sweatshop (terrible name, also Australians (I think?), but)
Cafe Pedlar (it’s…almost bad, though)
Blind Barber
The ELK
Hi Collar (if you pick the correct coffee, anyway, which, hint, NOT Porto Rico; apparently the coffee lately is frequently old)
Little Skips (frequently treads the bad line, but… )
WTF Coffee Lab (sometimes it was very good but I’ve heard lately it’s bad, so let’s split the difference?)
Southside Coffee
Third Rail Coffee
Kaffe 1668 (the juice is pretty good)
Prodigy Coffee
Beaner Bar (but… sometimes bad)
Pushcart Coffee (their coffee is better than it was, but execution can be off, so might be bad)
Ground Support
Swallow Cafe (it is somewhere between fine and bad)
Bad Shops That Mysteriously Maintain Reputations As Notable Shops
Birch Coffee
Bluestone Lane (more Australians, but also… maybe bad — it was definitely extremely bad the other day)
Cafe Grumpy (but it used to be fine and even good and can still be okay)
Gorilla Coffee
Daily Press
Hungry Ghost
Tar Pit
Think Coffee (I don’t know why this is ever on anyone’s list but somehow it is?)
Gasoline Alley (this was originally in the “Perfectly Okay” category, but then I recalled that every espresso I had there except one was bad)
Mudspot Coffee
Gimme Coffee (it used to be fine and occasionally even good!)
Irving Farm Coffee Roasters
La Colombe Torrefaction (but the draft latte is… extremely good)
Oslo Coffee Roasters (highly offensive to actual Oslo coffee roasters)
Fika (another insult to Scandinavia)
Brooklyn Roasting Company
Gregory’s Coffee (it’s some dude’s MBA project???)
Caffe Vita (go back to Seattle!!!!!)
whynot coffee (this is the worst coffee place…ever?)
The Bean (nevermind, this is definitely the worst coffee place ever; not that anyone thinks it is good, but it is so bad I can’t)
Konditori (another terrible insult to Scandinavian coffee)
Porto Rico
Previously: The Rise of Fake Good Coffee; Forms of Iced Coffee, Ranked
*Good is obviously a subjective term! Lots of coffee is good, from lots of places, like Waffle House or Dunkin Donuts or your corner deli. But within Fancy Coffee, I think the definition “good” can be narrowed slightly to fall within certain parameters specific to this genre of coffee, which is what this list is about. Of course, you should drink whatever you want because you’re going to die very, very soon and why drink something you don’t like?
