Cuvée Coffee started roasting in 1998, before specialty coffee shops dotted every Austin neighbourhood, as “Texas’ first craft coffee roaster”. Mike McKim was working in telecommunications when a visit to his uncle introduced him to roasting. He bought a used roaster, brought it back to Texas, and then spent five years in the espresso-machine business while roasting Cuvée coffee at nights and weekends. Rashelle McKim is the co-owner.

The roastery works six days a week, buys through direct relationships with growers and checks each roast with sensory equipment and regular cuppings. The range runs from the Emporium blend of several single origins and the espresso blends Stella Cometa and Karmadillo to single origins from Guatemala, Colombia and Brazil, and “there’s no wrong way to drink Cuvée”: black, with milk, as a pour-over or from a drip brewer.

In 2013 it built a small coffee bar into one end of the Salt & Time butcher shop, and in August 2014 it opened its first standalone Cuvée Coffee Bar in East Austin, where it served nitro cold brew on tap beside Texas beer and wine for nearly a decade. That bar closed in May 2024 when the lease came up for renewal. A second bar had opened in 2023 inside Natiivo, a hospitality building near Rainey Street, and in August 2026 Cuvée opened its new flagship at The Code in South Austin.

Both bars are built around four things: coffee, craft beer, wine and cocktails. The Code is the bigger room, with a broader drinks programme and parking validated at the bar, and Cuvée also runs coffee catering for events.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Cuvée Coffee