Austin coffee guide: roasters, trailers and two resident goats

Austin roasts. Eight of the ten coffee businesses in this guide roast their own coffee, most of them east of the interstate: Texas Coffee Traders, “Austin’s Original Eastside Roastery” since 1994, Medici at Springdale General, Flat Track and Figure 8 behind their East Austin cafés, and Fleet, which roasts most of what it pours. Cuvée has roasted since 1998 and runs coffee bars downtown and in South Austin. Civil Goat started out west in Cuernavaca, Sightseer roasts for its coffee bar in South Austin, and Dear Diary, a vegan café in East Austin, pours Sightseer. Medici counts the founders of Houndstooth and Fleet among its alumni; Houndstooth, open since 2010, has five Austin cafés and a partner roaster in Dallas, Tweed.

Cuvée Coffee, The Code and Natiivo

Cuvée Coffee began in 1998 when Mike McKim, then working in telecommunications, visited an uncle who roasted coffee, bought a used roaster and brought it back to Texas. The roastery works six days a week on coffee bought through direct relationships with growers, and the range runs from the Emporium blend and the espresso blends Stella Cometa and Karmadillo to single origins from Guatemala, Colombia and Brazil. Its first standalone coffee bar, in East Austin, ran from August 2014 to May 2024. Today there are two Cuvée Coffee Bars, one inside Natiivo near Rainey Street since 2023 and the flagship opened in August 2026 at The Code in South Austin, both built around coffee, craft beer, wine and cocktails.

Medici Roasting, Springdale General and five more cafés

Medici Roasting opened as Caffé Medici in West Lynn in September 2006. Michael and Alison, who met at Metro Espresso Bar on the Drag and married in 2002, took the name from the Florentine patrons of arts and conversation and the motto festina lente, make haste slowly. The roasting happens in East Austin at Springdale General, where the café has floor-to-ceiling windows, a training lab and flights of the single origins on request. House blends such as Clarksville and Notte sit beside single origins such as Los Naranjos. The other cafés are in Clarksville, where regulars call the first shop the neighbourhood’s living room, on the Drag across from the University of Texas, in the Zilker neighbourhood, at the Domain and at Gate 7 of the airport.

Texas Coffee Traders, East Austin

Texas Coffee Traders grew out of Montana Coffee Traders, which RC Beall started after the worst cup of coffee of his life in an all-night Montana diner. In 1990 he met Carlos Vargas of the Santa Elena co-op in Monteverde, Costa Rica, roasted the farmers’ own coffee for them and offered to buy it at a far higher price with a dollar a pound returned to the farm, which the company counts among the first fair-trade relationships in the United States. RC and Beth Beall opened Texas Coffee Traders in Austin in 1994. After nearly thirty years in one East Austin building it moved in 2024 to a café and retail shop in East Austin, with espresso drinks, drip coffee, pastries and beans, and a warehouse and roastery nearby that welcomes walk-ins and holds the full catalogue: single origins, blends, decafs and loose-leaf teas.

Flat Track Coffee and Palomino, East Austin

Flat Track Coffee is a specialty coffee roaster and café in East Austin with a motorcycle parked under the banner inside. It roasts custom house blends and single origins: Sidepipe for people who prefer a more developed roast, Dogspeed, a milk-friendly blend with mango, toffee and butterscotch in the roaster’s notes, single origins from Ethiopia and Mexico and a Swiss Water decaf from Brazil. Its sister café, Palomino Coffee, is further east. Flat Track supplies wholesale accounts around Austin, hosts events in the shop and ships subscriptions free through its Rise & Grind coffee club.

Fleet Coffee, four cafés from East Austin to Rainey Street

Fleet Coffee opened in March 2016 in a single triangular room in East Austin, started by Patrick Pierce and Loren Perkins, two friends who had worked in coffee since the mid-2000s; Patrick has been sole owner since 2018. Fleet roasts the majority of its coffee in-house, keeps its House Rules blend on the bar at all times, rotates seasonal single origins and also pours Sweet Bloom from Denver. Syrups and sauces are house-made. The four cafés are the stripped-down original with a bagel trailer out front, a coffee trailer beside the bar The Long Goodbye with mister fans and a patch of astroturf for children, a walk-up window downtown and, newest of all, an old bungalow off Rainey Street with seating among hundreds of plants. “We make coffee. Sometimes people like it.” is the slogan.

Figure 8 Coffee Purveyors, East Austin

Figure 8 Coffee Purveyors takes its name from the ice-skating figure that is hard to do and effortless to watch, the roaster’s picture of a barista’s work. The café and roastery opened in East Austin in 2014, “Worth the Drive on ’35”, and a second café followed. Both sell the full current inventory of roasted coffee. The Supergroup Blend puts Brazil’s Rio Brilhante under a natural Ethiopian and a Veracruz-grown Mexican, with cherry cola, caramel, cashew and berry in the roaster’s notes, and the single origins run from a honey-process Mexican grown by the APG family in Coatepec to an anaerobic natural from Mount Elgon in Uganda and a double-fermented Ethiopian from Banko Taratu. Figure 8 also cans its coffee, black and as oat-milk lattes, and supplies cafés and offices under the banner “8th wave coffee”.

Civil Goat Coffee, Cuernavaca and three more

Civil Goat Coffee started in Cuernavaca, the neighbourhood west of the city where artists, makers, families and longtime locals share the same streets and trails, and two goats, Butters and Norm, still live at that original café. Civil Goat roasts its own coffee in Austin, aiming for balanced, approachable cups: single origins from Ethiopia, Kenya, Colombia, Guatemala and Nicaragua, the blends Cuernavaca, Ocotillo, Terco and Caliche, Old Louie, a washed Yirgacheffe, and a Colombian decaf. There are four cafés: Cuernavaca, Guadalupe, Manor Road and East 6th.

Sightseer Coffee Roasters, South Austin

Sightseer Coffee Roasters was started in 2021 by Sara Gibson and Kimberly Zash and is women- and queer-owned. It buys green coffee only from women-led farms, co-ops and mills, among them the Dumerso washing station in Yirgacheffe run by the sisters Hirut and Mahder Berhanu, pays more than Fair Trade prices and roasts in Austin. The bags are labelled by roast level, from light Ethiopian single origins to the dark Killer Queen from Mount Elgon, with Hellacious as the cocoa and nut espresso blend and a Pride Blend that carries a donation to Out Youth. The Sightseer Coffee Bar sits next door to Sugar Mama’s Bakeshop in South Austin.

Dear Diary Coffee, East Austin

Dear Diary Coffee is a fully vegan coffee shop in East Austin that pours espresso, drip coffee and cold brew roasted by Sightseer, with roast profiles worked out together so the espresso holds up in steamed plant milk. Almond, coconut, soy, oat and pistachio milks carry no upcharge, pastries come from independent bakers in Austin and San Antonio, and under its No Tax, No Tip policy no sales tax is added at the register and there is no tipping screen. The room hosts an open mic, a women’s bike ride, art on consignment and pop-ups.

Houndstooth Coffee, Central Austin, downtown and three more

Houndstooth Coffee opened in Central Austin in May 2010, with “The pattern of coffee and people” written on the wall, and its founders came out of Medici. Its partner roaster is Tweed Coffee in Dallas, which roasts on a 35 kilogram Loring, rotates its coffees with the seasons and roasts “for terroir, not for a light or dark roast character”. The five Austin cafés are the original in Central Austin, built around a low-slung espresso machine with the barista in the middle of the room, Frost Downtown, East MLK with beer, wine and craft cocktails, Rock Rose at Domain Northside with classic and specialty coffee cocktails, and Laurel, the newest, near the Colorado River in East Austin. Three more cafés are in Dallas.

What you need to know about Austin specialty coffee

Which Austin coffee shops roast their own coffee? Cuvée has roasted since 1998 and Texas Coffee Traders since 1994. Medici roasts at Springdale General, Flat Track and Figure 8 roast in East Austin, Fleet roasts most of its coffee in-house, Civil Goat roasts in Austin and Sightseer roasts for its coffee bar in South Austin.

Which roasters do the other cafés serve? Dear Diary pours Sightseer, Fleet pours Sweet Bloom from Denver beside its own roasts, and Houndstooth’s partner roaster is Tweed Coffee in Dallas.

Can you visit a roastery? Texas Coffee Traders’ warehouse and roastery welcomes walk-ins, and the Medici café at Springdale General and Figure 8’s original café share their buildings with the roasters.

Where can you drink coffee with a beer or a cocktail? Both Cuvée Coffee Bars, at The Code and at Natiivo, are built around coffee, craft beer, wine and cocktails, and Houndstooth’s East MLK and Rock Rose cafés serve beer, wine and cocktails.

Is there good coffee at the airport? Medici has a café at Gate 7 of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

Which cafés suit a vegan? Dear Diary is fully vegan, with plant milks at no upcharge.

Where are dogs welcome? Medici’s café in the Zilker neighbourhood has a pet-friendly patio.