Four specialty shops for New York coffee snobs
[Flickr/Premshree Pillai]
We've already told you about the best places to lounge over coffee in New York, so what about drinkers who could care less about the lounging but are super-serious about the Joe? New York has actually been a little late to the artisan coffee craze that has swept West Coast cities like Seattle, Portland and San Francisco over the past decade, but the city is now home to several notable specialty coffee shops.
Cafe Grumpy: When this local mini-chain, which operates its own roasting facility in Brooklyn, opened a Chelsea outpost in 2006, they brought in two Clovers, the $11,000 machines that give baristas a wide degree of control over each single-brewed cup. When Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz wandered into the shop to try a cup, he liked it so much that he ended up buying the company that makes those machines. Cafe Grumpy's sole Manhattan shop is just a few blocks from the GEM Hotel, with two more locations in Brooklyn. 224 West 20th Street
Gimme! Coffee: This Upstate New York company roasts their beans in small batches, spending months selecting the best varieties from around the world, even visiting coffee farms to ensure their suppliers are using sustainable practices that help their communities. Their tiny NoLita shop, near the Best Western Bowery Hanbee Hotel, offers very little in the way of comfort, with just a small bar where patrons stand and sip their coffee --- but there are a slew of regulars who won't consider sipping anywhere else. 228 Mott Street
Kaffe 1668: Proving that coffee snobbery and comfy couches don't have to be mutually exclusive, this year-old TriBeCa shop (right near the Greenwich Hotel) is a two-story behemoth that would make most Starbucks jealous, with a large communal table on the first floor and a lounge-y basement room to boot. They even nabbed two Clover machines---one week before Starbucks bought up the company that makes them---which they use to brew up single-origin coffees from Chicago-based coffee snob favorite Intelligentsia. 275 Greenwich Street.
Of course, many coffee snobs and hotel obsessives already know that Midtown's Ace Hotel NY is home to the first East Coast location of Portland's Stumptown Coffee, one of the companies that kicked off the whole artisan coffee craze. 20 West 29th Street
- Brendan Spiegal of Endless Simmer