Chicago coffee guide: where the third wave learned to roast

Chicago has been roasting its own coffee for a long time. Intelligentsia opened as a café and roastery in Lakeview in 1995, Metropolis followed in Edgewater in 2003, Ipsento in Bucktown in 2006 and Dark Matter at Star Lounge in 2007, and a second generation, Passion House, Metric and Four Letter Word, set up in the 2010s. Ten of the eleven businesses in this guide roast their own coffee and pour it in their own cafés, from the Loop and the Gold Coast to Logan Square, Avondale and the two airports; the eleventh, The Wormhole in Wicker Park, pours Halfwit, the roaster its own team started.

Intelligentsia Coffee, Lakeview and the Loop

Intelligentsia Coffee opened on 9 October 1995 in Lakeview, where Doug Zell and Emily Mange roasted in the shop on a Probat L12, and it now roasts at its Chicago Roasting Works in Bedford Park. Direct Trade is how it buys all of its coffee, through relationships that in Rwanda, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador go back to 2003. In Chicago there are three coffeebars: Broadway in Lakeview, where the first café opened, and two in the Loop, in the Monadnock Building and on Millennium Park.

Metropolis Coffee Company, Edgewater and O’Hare

Metropolis Coffee Company is the work of a father and son, Jeff and Tony Dreyfuss, who bought a 12 kg roaster at a trade show in 2002 before they had anywhere to put it. Their café opened in Edgewater, on the far North Side, in December 2003, and in 2007 Metropolis won Roast Magazine’s Micro Roaster of the Year, which turned a neighbourhood café into a national wholesaler with more than 1,200 accounts. The roastery is in a 19th-century manufacturing building on the North Branch of the Chicago River, with vintage roasters from the 1930s and 1940s. The Edgewater café still has local art on the walls, and since May 2024 there has been a second café in Terminal 5 at O’Hare, by Gate M30.

Dark Matter Coffee, eight cafés from Ukrainian Village to Pilsen

Dark Matter Coffee began in 2007 at Star Lounge Coffee Bar on the West Side and buys directly from farmers in Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia and Mexico, some of them partners for more than a decade. It sorts its coffees by process, Agua for washed, Aire for honey, Tierra for natural and Fuego for experimental lots. Each café is conceived as an album: The Mothership in Ukrainian Village, the original Star Lounge and Soft Parade in West Town, Osmium in Lakeview, Meddle in the West Loop, Electric Mud in Bucktown, Caravanserai in Avondale and Sleep Walk Chocolateria in Pilsen, which shares its name with Dark Matter’s bean-to-bar chocolate. Dark Matter also runs a record label, Press Pot Recordings.

Metric Coffee, the Kinzie Corridor and Avondale

Metric Coffee was started by Xavier Alexander and his co-founder Darko, who began roasting in late 2012 on a Probat bought sight unseen and moved the wholesale business into the Kinzie Corridor in early 2013. Metric is guided by “radical transparency”: it buys directly from small producers, pays above-average premiums, makes its prices public and has released transparency reports on its green coffee purchases since 2020. Everything is roasted on an antique Probat UG15 and a Probat P25. The flagship café opened in the Kinzie Corridor in October 2016, a 400 square foot walk-up room beside the training centre that hosts brewing workshops. In Avondale, Milli by Metric is an all-day café and bakery in a century-old former antique mall, with a dining room that looks onto the roasting floor.

Big Shoulders Coffee, from Lincoln Park to the Board of Trade

Big Shoulders Coffee grew out of chef Tim Coonan’s garage roasting into a woman-owned company run by co-founder and CEO Patricia Coonan. It roasts exclusively on Loring Smart Roasters and buys from farmers it has built relationships with. Big Shoulders roaster Diego Guartan was crowned 2025 US Coffee Roasting Champion, and in 2019 Food & Wine picked Big Shoulders for Illinois in its state-by-state list. The eight cafés are designed as a “third place” between home and work: Lincoln Park, West Town, the Gold Coast, Little Italy, three in the Loop, one of them inside the Chicago Board of Trade, and one in Terminal A at Midway Airport.

Passion House Coffee, Goose Island and East Garfield Park

Passion House Coffee was founded in 2011 by Joshua Millman, a former Chicago barista who came home from San Diego to build a coffee company around music. Every coffee is named for a song, an album or a place, from the Chicago House Blend to LSD Blend, for Lake Shore Drive, and the range is sorted into genres: Ambient for the year-round blends, Mainstream for seasonal single origins and Experimental for limited lots from farmers trying new processing. Most of its coffees are single origins bought through long-standing grower relationships. The roastery in East Garfield Park doubles as a café, and there is a café on Goose Island.

Ipsento, Bucktown

Ipsento has roasted and poured its own small-batch coffee in Bucktown since 2006, and its name joins the Latin ipse, self, and sentio, to discover. Ipsento 606 is a café and bar beside the 606 elevated trail, with espresso, hand-roasted drip, nitro cold brew on draught and the Ipsento Latte, made with coconut cream, honey and cayenne. The kitchen serves breakfast sandwiches, paninis, quiche, affogato and soft serve through the day, and the shelf holds the Cascade espresso blend, single origins from Peru, Colombia, Guatemala and Brazil, and Bucktown Brew, a honey-processed Ethiopia from Kayon Mountain Farm. A monthly membership called 606GOLD gives priority access to its cupping classes and events.

Gaslight Coffee Roasters, Logan Square

Gaslight Coffee Roasters is a café and roaster in Logan Square that roasts on Mondays and keeps a short, seasonal menu of single origins. Recent lots include a honey-processed Catuai from Daniela and her family in San Marcos de Tarrazú, Costa Rica, and a washed Guatemala from the ALMA programme, alongside a Mexican decaf. The café pours coffee, espresso and cold brew with matcha, chai, Spirit Tea and oat and almond milks, and has pastries from Aya Pastry every day.

Four Letter Word Coffee, Logan Square by way of Istanbul

Four Letter Word Coffee started in the summer of 2014 on Burgazada, an island off Istanbul, where Eylem Ozkaya, Kevin Heisner and Ria Neri wanted a cornerstone for social life on the island, and it opened its Chicago shop in Logan Square in 2018. It roasts on a Giesen G6 in Istanbul and a Probat P12 in Chicago, with precision and restraint, and every bag is roasted for both filter and espresso. The Logan Square room has a black-tiled bar, round mirrors and a herringbone floor, and serves seasonal coffees, teas and pastries. The company has appeared in Monocle, Food & Wine’s 2019 list of the best coffee shops in America and the 2026 book 150 Coffee Shops You Need to Visit Before You Die.

Pedestrian Coffee, Logan Square, Lakeview and Andersonville

Pedestrian Coffee is Tim Taylor’s second roastery: he started the one that became Ipsento and, a decade on, set up Pedestrian “because fantastic coffee isn’t just for hipsters”. Every coffee is roasted to order at its roastery in Logan Square and shipped on Mondays, most of it medium to light, and the farmer is paid on average 2.5 times the Fair Trade price. The range is tiered, Elite for rare lots such as a nine-day anaerobic Ethiopian from Ephtah’s Lalesa station, Red Label and Green Label for the rest, with the blends Jaywalker and Hitch Hiker. The cafés are in Lakeview, in Logan Square, where there is ice cream too, and in Andersonville at The Coffee Studio.

The Wormhole Coffee, Wicker Park

The Wormhole Coffee is the one café in this guide that does not roast for itself. Halfwit Coffee Roasters began in 2012 as the brainchild of the Wormhole team and now roasts in Pilsen, with a short range led by the Triforce espresso blend, half Ethiopia and half Guatemala, and the Moonbat blend. The café pours Halfwit beside a featured guest roaster, a programme that has brought Four Barrel, Heart, Sterling and JBC to the brew bar.

What you need to know about Chicago specialty coffee

Which Chicago coffee shops roast their own coffee? Ten of the eleven in this guide. Intelligentsia roasts in Bedford Park, Metropolis on the North Branch of the Chicago River, Metric at Milli in Avondale, Passion House in East Garfield Park, Ipsento in Bucktown, Pedestrian in Logan Square and Four Letter Word on a Probat in Chicago, while Dark Matter, Big Shoulders and Gaslight roast for their own cafés. The Wormhole pours Halfwit Coffee Roasters, which its team started in 2012 and which roasts in Pilsen.

Where is the coffee in the Loop? Intelligentsia has coffeebars in the Monadnock Building and on Millennium Park, Big Shoulders has three Loop cafés including one inside the Chicago Board of Trade, and Dark Matter’s Meddle is in the West Loop.

Is there good coffee at the airports? Metropolis runs a café in Terminal 5 at O’Hare, by Gate M30, and Big Shoulders has one in Terminal A at Midway.

Where can you learn to brew? Metric runs workshops on pour-over, home espresso and milk steaming at its Kinzie Corridor training centre, and Ipsento’s 606GOLD members get priority access to its cupping classes.

Which Chicago roasters have cafés outside the city? Intelligentsia has coffeebars in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Austin and Seoul, Dark Matter has ¡Adios Amigos! in New York, and Four Letter Word has its original shop on Burgazada, Istanbul.