Specialty coffee in Chicago
18 cafés, 6 roasters, 11 neighbourhoods
Intelligentsia started in Lakeview in 1995, roasting in the shop, and Metropolis was founded in 2003 as a neighbourhood café. Several roasters in the city began behind a café counter: Dark Matter at Star Lounge, Halfwit with the team from The Wormhole. On this page, West Town and Wicker Park have the most cafés, and several of them are a short walk apart.
The cafés, by neighbourhood
For 6 of the 18 cafés we know whose coffee they pour. The neighbourhood with the most cafés is West Town & Wicker Park.
More about these labels
- In-house
- The coffee is the café’s own roast.
- Roaster not listed yet
- Cupd does not know yet whose coffee the café pours. Cafés can add their roaster for free, and guests can report it in the app.
West Town & Wicker Park
5 cafés
Big Shoulders Coffee
Big Shoulders began as a hobby, roasting beans in a garage. Co-founders Patricia and Tim Coonan each have more than 30 years in hospitality behind them.
Dark Matter Star Lounge
Dark Matter Coffee started here, at Star Lounge, in 2007. Their producing partners in El Salvador and Guatemala have worked with them for more than a decade.
Ipsento 606
Ipsento has been around since 2006. The beans are roasted in-house in small batches, and this café right on the 606 trail is a bar as well.
Prequel Cafe
Prequel is a multi-roaster café that pours coffee from roasters across the US. All the breads, bagels, buns, syrups and concentrates are made in-house.
The Wormhole
The Wormhole opened in June 2010. Two years later its team started their own roaster, Halfwit Coffee Roasters.
Lakeview
2 cafés
Intelligentsia Coffee
Doug Zell and Emily Mange set out to open a café and roaster in Lakeview, and it welcomed its first customers on 9 October 1995. Broadway is one of their coffeebars in the city.
Pedestrian Coffee
Pedestrian belongs to Tim Taylor, who earlier started the roastery that became Ipsento. Coffee is roasted and shipped out fresh every Monday.
Logan Square
2 cafés
Four Letter Word Coffee
Eylem Ozkaya, Kevin Heisner and Ria Neri founded Four Letter Word in the summer of 2014 on Burgazada, an island off Istanbul. In 2018 they brought it to Chicago.
Gaslight Coffee Roasters
Tristan Coulter and Zak Rye met while working at Metropolis and opened Gaslight in September 2012.
West Loop
2 cafés
Metric Coffee Co.
Metric opened this café on 10 October 2016, with a view into their training center. They roast on an antique Probat UG15 and a Probat P25, and visit small producers around the world to pick their lots for the season.
Sawada Coffee
This is the first US café of Hiroshi Sawada, a barista and latte art master. The signature is the military latte: matcha, vanilla, espresso and cocoa powder with your choice of milk.
Other neighbourhoods
7 cafés
Bridgeport Coffee
Bridgeport Coffee opened its first location in 2004, and this shop on Morgan Street is where its roots are. In the 2010s it roasted its own beans and imported coffee directly from a grower in El Salvador.
Sputnik Coffee Company
Sputnik was founded in 2017, and its founders started out roasting coffee at home. Here they roast, brew and serve their medium roast.
Metropolis Coffee Company
Metropolis was founded in 2003 and started out as a neighbourhood café. This Edgewater café on Granville is their flagship.
Backlot Coffee
John Kim and Isaac Bloom founded Backlot in 2016. It has grown into three cafés and a roastery of its own, and they want it to be the place where you meet your neighbours.
Oromo Cafe
Oromo is named after the Oromo people of Ethiopia.
Necessary and Sufficient Coffee
Artist Kate Vrijmoet opened necessary & sufficient's window in Logan Square and also runs this larger sit-down space. The business is built around sustainability, social interaction and paying it forward.
Hexe Coffee Co.
Hexe started in 2016 as a side project in the afternoons, supplying cold brew and coffee to local markets and festivals. A café was never the plan, but one opened in September 2019.
Roasters poured in Chicago
6 roasters across the cafés above, by how many of them pour each one.
Roasters from Chicago
Big Shoulders Coffee
Big Shoulders roasts exclusively on Loring Smart Roasters. The beans come from farmers they have built relationships with.
Four Letter Word Coffee
Four Letter Word roasts on a Probat P12 in Chicago and on a Giesen in Istanbul. They say their selections are guided by character and provenance.
Gaslight Coffee Roasters
When Gaslight opened in 2012, it roasted its own beans in a space shared with Halfwit Coffee. Today they also sell beans to other businesses and offer consulting.
Intelligentsia Coffee
Intelligentsia started in 1995 roasting in-store on a Probat L12. They say their focus is on sourcing exceptional coffee and paying a fair price for it.
Metropolis Coffee Company
Metropolis, co-founded by Tony Dreyfuss, roasts at its own roastery in Avondale. They say direct trade is an important part of their green coffee buying, and they also buy from importers they know.
Sputnik Coffee Company
Sputnik's blend uses beans from Brazil, Colombia and Indonesia. The Colombian beans come from family-owned farms around Pereira.
Questions
Which roasters can I find in Chicago’s cafés?
This page lists 6 roasters, among them Big Shoulders Coffee, Four Letter Word Coffee, Gaslight Coffee Roasters, Intelligentsia Coffee and Metropolis Coffee Company. Next to each roaster it says whether the coffee is the café’s own roast and where Cupd got the information. The labels are explained above the list.
How up to date is this list?
It is a copy of the Cupd app as of November 11, 2026. Cafés and guests keep the app current, so open Chicago in Cupd to see what has changed since.
A café is missing. How does it get on here?
In the app, search for it and tap “Missing a café? Tell us”. If it is your café, claim it for free on the page for cafés and enter your roaster. It shows up here with the next update.
Where the café texts come from, read on November 11, 2026
- Backlot Coffee: backlotroasting.co, backlotroasting.co
- Big Shoulders Coffee: bigshoulderscoffee.com
- Bridgeport Coffee: dnainfo.com, dnainfo.com
- Dark Matter Star Lounge: darkmattercoffee.com, darkmattercoffee.com
- Four Letter Word Coffee: 4lwcoffee.com
- Gaslight Coffee Roasters: dnainfo.com
- Hexe Coffee Co.: hexecoffee.com
- Intelligentsia Coffee: intelligentsia.com, intelligentsia.com
- Ipsento 606: ipsento.com, ipsento.com
- Metric Coffee Co.: metriccoffee.com, metriccoffee.com
- Metropolis Coffee Company: metropoliscoffee.com, metropoliscoffee.com
- Necessary and Sufficient Coffee: windycitytimes.com
- Oromo Cafe: dnainfo.com
- Pedestrian Coffee: depauliaonline.com, drinkpedestrian.com
- Prequel Cafe: prequelcafe.com
- Sawada Coffee: sawadacoffee.com
- Sputnik Coffee Company: dailycoffeenews.com, sputnikcoffeecompany.com
- The Wormhole: sprudge.com, halfwitsecretdungeon.squarespace.com
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