The Best Coffee Houses in North America

Lines

A line out the door is normal at the busier shops, above all on weekend mornings, and most of them move fast. At Caffe Paradiso in New York staff walk the queue taking orders and payment. Desnudo Coffee, a truck in an East Austin food truck park, hands out free cold brew samples to people waiting. At Onyx Coffee Lab on the square in Bentonville the lines are longest on weekend mornings.

Malls and strip malls

Several of these shops are in places a visitor would not walk past. Yaw Farm Coffee Roaster is a takeout counter in a Las Vegas strip mall. Cath Coffee and Tea House is a kiosk inside Castleton Square Mall in Indianapolis, near Macy's, and School Specialty Coffee is inside Mapleview Mall in Burlington, Ontario. Parking matters for the rest: it is hard to find near Saigon Coffee in San Diego, and the lot at Phin Smith Coffee House in Las Vegas is small and often full.

Laptops and seats

Rules on laptops differ by shop. Lucero Canteen in Kitchener allows none, and SEY Coffee in New York keeps them to the back section. Moxie Coffee Co. in Phoenix has stable WiFi and many people work there. Some shops have no indoor seats at all. Hidden Grounds Coffee in Wilmington takes orders in a tight front room and seats everyone in a terraced garden behind it, reached by steep stairs.

Roasting in view

Many of the shops roast their own beans where customers can watch. Goldchild Coffee Roasters in San Diego has its machine by the entrance, and at SEY the roaster stands behind a glass partition. Bags of beans are sold at most of them.