Philadelphia coffee guide: the city that roasts its own

Philadelphia is a city of neighbourhood cafés that roast for themselves. Nine of these eleven businesses roast their own coffee, among them in a former elevator factory in South Kensington, in Frankford, in Newbold, at a Vietnamese café in Kensington, for a Fishtown shop that sells one coffee a month, and, since 1994, for La Colombe and its 29 cafés. The other two pour other roasters’ coffee: a Bella Vista café pours its sister roaster’s coffee, and a small café near Washington Square brews SEY, Poem, Little Wolf, Dak and September. These coffee shops in Philadelphia run from Center City and Rittenhouse Square to Queen Village, Fishtown, Kensington, Germantown and Mount Airy.

Elixr Coffee Roasters, Center City and the airport

Elixr Coffee Roasters was founded in 2010 and specialises in lighter-roasted coffees, from microlots to seasonal blends. It placed second at the United States Barista Championship in 2018 and third in 2019, and reached the final of the US Roasting Championship four times between 2015 and 2019. There are two cafés in Center City, one in Callowhill, one in West Philadelphia and one at Philadelphia International Airport between Terminals B and C. The Center City café hosts the Elixr art programme, with six commissioned murals a year. Elixr also runs cafés in Norwood, State College and Nashville.

La Colombe Coffee Roasters, Fishtown and Center City

La Colombe Coffee Roasters opened its first café in Philadelphia in 1994 with a micro roaster in the back, built a full roastery in the city the next year and still roasts every batch in Philadelphia. It now has 29 cafés, in New York, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, San Diego, Chicago, Washington DC and Austin as well as at home, and the Draft Latte it has poured on tap since 2015 is canned in Michigan and sold across the country. The Philadelphia cafés are at Rittenhouse Square, by City Hall on Dilworth Plaza, on Independence Mall and in Fishtown, with a fifth in Bryn Mawr, outside the city. Nizza, a medium roast blend, is the espresso in every café and Corsica the dark house blend, both served since 1994, alongside single origins from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. The Fishtown café hosts coffee workshop classes.

ReAnimator Coffee, six cafés from Fishtown to Mount Airy

ReAnimator Coffee started in 2010 in the basement of a Fishtown row home and opened its first café in 2013 at “the forks”, in the heart of the neighbourhood. Every batch is now roasted in South Kensington, inside a former elevator factory that doubles as a café, so the roasting can be watched over a cup. ReAnimator buys fresh from harvest and returns to the same producers every year, from washing stations in Yirgacheffe to a micro mill in Costa Rica, and the roast date is on every bag. The six cafés, in Fishtown, South Kensington, South Philly, West Philly, Port Richmond and Mount Airy, serve a seasonal menu of espresso drinks, single origin coffee, teas and baked goods. The blends are Foundation, Keystone, Kensington and All Day, with an espresso blend, a sugar cane decaf and a Halloween Blend in October.

Rival Bros Coffee, five cafés and a Frankford roastery

Rival Bros Coffee has roasted in Philadelphia since 2011. It is the work of two lifelong friends, the chef Jonathan Adams and the roaster Damien Pileggi. The house blends and seasonal single origins are roasted at its own roastery in Frankford and poured in five cafés, in Rittenhouse Square, Midtown Village, East Passyunk, Brewerytown and, the newest, Olde Kensington on the edge of Fishtown and Northern Liberties. Each has drip coffee, a Chemex bar and the full espresso menu, with pastries from Au Fournil and bread from The Mighty Bread Co. Champion is the charity blend, always two coffees rotated with the seasons, with two dollars from every bag split between Gemma Services in Greater Philadelphia and projects in coffee-growing communities; it currently pairs a Huehuetenango lot with one from Lempira, Honduras.

Ultimo Coffee, Newbold, Graduate Hospital and Germantown

Ultimo Coffee was, by its own account, “one of the first specialty coffee shops to open in Philadelphia”. Aaron and Elizabeth Ultimo met working in a Washington DC coffee shop and opened their first café in Newbold, in South Philly, in 2009, then a second in Graduate Hospital in 2012 and a large café and bakery in Germantown in 2019. Ultimo Coffee Roasters grew out of the cafés in 2016, with a roastery and lab in Newbold, and the coffees are roasted to order on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The list is mostly washed single origins from Ethiopia, Kenya, Guatemala and Mexico, with Imperial as the house dark roast. Eater has listed Ultimo among the 38 essential coffee shops in America.

Vibrant Coffee Roasters, Rittenhouse Square

Vibrant Coffee Roasters was started by two Philadelphians “to change the game of third-wave coffee”, under the motto “coffee is a fruit”. It roasts on a Loring, changes its coffees with the seasons and sells its competition-grade lots as Black Label, roasted only on Tuesdays. The first café is a tiny room on Rittenhouse Square with its own sourdough bakery, croissants, danishes, cinnamon buns, bagels and bread, and two coffees on batch brew, a chocolatey medium roast and a rotating fruity light roast. A second café sits steps from City Hall, with seating in the lobby next door, and a third in Society Hill adds pour-overs and more room to sit.

Càphê Roasters, Kensington

Càphê Roasters is “the first and only Vietnamese specialty coffee roaster in Philadelphia”, founded in 2018 by Thu Pham and Raymond John after they won Shift Capital’s Kensington Avenue Storefront Challenge. The coffee comes mainly from Vietnam, led by a microlot from Lam Dong grown by 38 smallholder producers at 1,400 metres, and is roasted in small batches at the Kensington café, the Vietnamese beans profiled for cà phê sữa, the traditional coffee with condensed milk. The café is a James Beard Awards semifinalist for Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program, and Bon Appétit named its bánh mì among the best hoagies in the city. Càphê gives a significant share of its profits to the nonprofit 12 Plus and employs its students and alumni.

Ox Coffee, Queen Village

Ox Coffee opened in Queen Village in October 2013, the project of two friends from the New York coffee scene: Will Gross, who worked at Joe, Ritual in San Francisco and Stumptown in Brooklyn as a roaster, and Max Cudworth, who rose from barback to senior barista at Joe. The coffee is roasted at Ox’s roastery in Kensington: OX 1 is the espresso blend, OX 2 a washed Latin American blend, Ace the blend built for iced coffee, alongside a Colombia Supremo, an Ethiopia Yirgacheffe, a decaf and the Philabundance coffee, which sends a quarter of its proceeds to the city’s food bank. The room is compact and warm, with no wifi, local artists on the walls and evening classes in espresso and latte art.

Persimmon Coffee, Fishtown

Persimmon Coffee sells one single origin coffee a month. Chaereen Pak and Sawyer Beckley launched it on Christmas Day 2020 “as a gift to our loved ones”, ran it as a pop-up for a year and a half from University City to Queen Village, and opened the Fishtown shop in the summer of 2022, a three-minute walk from Girard Station. The name comes from a tree that can take ten years to bear fruit and from a fruit that is often overlooked in North America, which is why the shop puts inclusivity first: “come as you are. Because you are enough.” The month’s coffee is also sold through the Friday Coffee Club subscription and at stockists around the city.

Function Coffee Labs, Bella Vista

Function Coffee Labs does not roast. Its house coffee is a rotating single origin roasted by its sister company Vibrant, just outside Philadelphia, and its “Lab Line” is three single origins brewed on the Hario V60, one of them also pulled as a single origin espresso, typically African. Ross Nickerson, a mechanical engineer who taught physics in England, and Megan McCusker, a Philadelphia native, started it in 2015 under the line “Where coffee meets science”. The sourdough bakery is in-house, with croissants, cruffins, cinnamon buns and toasts.

Thank You Thank You, Washington Square West

Thank You Thank You is a small café a few blocks from Washington Square that brews “the best coffees we can find”, each written up with its lot, producer and the roaster’s notes. The board leans on SEY from Brooklyn, with a washed Pink Bourbon from José Martínez in Huila on batch brew and a washed Sidama landrace on espresso, and Poem Roasting from Philadelphia supplies the iced batch brew. Single cups come from Little Wolf in Massachusetts, Dak in Amsterdam and September, and the Bean Head concierge service posts one or two bags a month from “the world’s best roasters”. Philadelphia magazine likened a visit to an omakase dinner.

What you need to know about Philadelphia specialty coffee

Which Philadelphia coffee shops roast their own coffee? Elixr, ReAnimator (in its South Kensington café), Rival Bros (in Frankford), Ultimo (in Newbold), Vibrant, Càphê (in its Kensington café), Ox (in Kensington) and Persimmon all roast their own, and La Colombe has roasted in Philadelphia since 1994. Function Coffee Labs serves Vibrant’s coffee, and Thank You Thank You brews coffees from SEY, Poem Roasting, Little Wolf, Dak and September.

Which cafés bake their own? Vibrant bakes sourdough croissants, danishes, cinnamon buns, bagels and bread at Rittenhouse Square and bagels, buns and cookies at City Hall; Function Coffee Labs runs a full sourdough bakery; Ultimo’s Germantown café is also a bakery.

Where is the Vietnamese coffee? Càphê Roasters in Kensington roasts beans from Lam Dong for cà phê sữa and serves bánh mì.

Can you work on a laptop? Ox Coffee has no wifi.

Where can you learn to make coffee? Ox Coffee runs evening classes in espresso and latte art, and La Colombe’s Fishtown café hosts coffee workshop classes.

Is there good coffee at the airport? Elixr has a café at Philadelphia International Airport between Terminals B and C.