Specialty coffee in Philadelphia
15 cafés, 7 roasters, 3 neighbourhoods
La Colombe opened its first café in Philadelphia in 1994, with a small roaster in the back. Many of the cafés on this page roast their own coffee too: ReAnimator started in 2010 in the basement of a Fishtown row home, and Ultimo opened as a café in 2009 and has roasted its own coffee since 2016. Most of the cafés are in South Philly and Center City.
The cafés, by neighbourhood
For 7 of the 15 cafés we know whose coffee they pour.
More about these labels
- In-house
- The coffee is the café’s own roast.
- Regular roaster
- The café pours this roaster’s coffee. Cupd researched this, mostly on the café’s or the roaster’s own website. Once a café has claimed its profile, it can confirm or remove the roaster.
- 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.
South Philly
6 cafés
Function Coffee Labs
Ross Nickerson and Megan McCusker began Function in April 2015 with nothing more than an Instagram account. Ross has a mechanical engineering background, and every cup follows a recipe. The house coffee is a rotating single origin from their sister company, Vibrant Coffee Roasters.
Herman's Coffee & Market
Mat and Amy Falco turned an old auto shop and gas station into a café with a specialty foods market. They roast the beans themselves in small batches, and the name comes from Mat's grandfather.
Ox Coffee
Two old friends, Will Gross and Max Cudworth, opened OX in Queen Village in October 2013 and roast the coffee at their own roastery in Kensington.
Rally
Meredith Waldman and Sun Park opened Rally in 2016 as a neighbourhood café and a creative agency in one.
Two Persons
Two Persons sits in the Bok Building, a former vocational school, and takes its name from a book Edward Bok published in 1922. Adam Gery and Whitney Joslin opened it in 2018, and it pours coffee from several roasters.
Ultimo Coffee
Aaron and Elizabeth Ultimo met working in a DC coffee shop and opened a café in Newbold in 2009. Since 2016 they have roasted their own coffee, with the roastery and lab also in Newbold.
Center City
5 cafés
Elixr Coffee
Evan Inatome started Elixr in 2010 and roasts the coffee himself, not far from this café. The focus is on lighter roasts.
Rival Bros. Coffee Bar
Jonathan Adams and Damien Pileggi started Rival Bros. in 2011, selling lattes out of a truck. This corner at 24th and Lombard became their first brick-and-mortar shop in 2014.
Suprema Coffee Roastery
When it opened, Suprema roasted its beans in small batches every day right in the shop, where you could see (and smell) the roaster at work. The beans came from small farmers and cooperatives in Central and South America.
Thank You Thank You Coffee Brewers
Cody McGregor, a Philly coffee veteran, opened Thank You Thank You in 2022. It's a multi-roaster café, so the coffee comes from several roasters instead of one house roaster.
Vibrant Coffee Roasters & Bakery
Ross Nickerson founded Vibrant Coffee Roasters, and this café and bakery, opened in 2021, was the company's first shop. The bakery grew out of Ross's home baking: sourdough breads, croissants and brioche.
Fishtown & Kensington
4 cafés
Càphê Roasters
Thu Pham and Raymond John founded Càphê in 2018 as a Vietnamese specialty coffee roaster. The coffee is roasted in small batches right here at the Kensington café, and the Vietnamese beans are roasted specifically for cà phê sữa, the traditional Vietnamese coffee.
La Colombe
La Colombe opened its first café in Philadelphia in 1994, with a small roaster in the back. This Fishtown spot came in 2014 and opened as an 11,000 square foot café, bar, bakery and distillery.
Persimmon Coffee
Chaereen Pak and Sawyer Beckley launched Persimmon on Christmas Day 2020 and opened this shop in summer 2022. When they buy green coffee and when they roast, they focus on a single coffee at a time. The name comes from the persimmon tree, which can take up to ten years to bear its first fruit.
ReAnimator Coffee
ReAnimator started in 2010, roasting in the basement of a Fishtown row home. Today all the coffee is roasted in a former elevator factory in South Kensington, and they go back to the same producers year after year.
Roasters poured in Philadelphia
7 roasters across the cafés above, by how many of them pour each one.
Roasters from Philadelphia
Càphê Roasters
Càphê buys from farmers in Vietnam, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, and its signature Vietnamese beans come from a microlot in Lam Dong. Partner cafés and restaurants across the US pour its coffee.
Elixr Coffee
Elixr has roasted since 2010, starting out in Fishtown, and sells wholesale coffee across the city and the Atlantic Northeast. In 2018 it opened a roastery with a café in the Goldtex Building on North 12th Street.
Herman's Coffee & Market
Herman's roasts its own beans in small batches, in-house at its Pennsport shop, a converted auto repair shop.
La Colombe
La Colombe started in 1994 with a single roasting machine and opened a full-scale roastery in Philadelphia a year later. It also invented the Draft Latte and introduced it on tap in its cafés.
Ox Coffee
Co-owner Will Gross has worked in specialty coffee since 2005, and he's the one you'll find at OX's roastery in Kensington. OX says it focuses on coffee that is harvested, processed and roasted using sustainable and organic practices.
Vibrant Coffee Roasters
Vibrant, the sister company of Function Coffee Labs, roasts on a Loring and leaves green coffee buying to a handful of specialist importers. Most of its coffees each come from one farm and one producer.
From elsewhere
Questions
Which roasters can I find in Philadelphia’s cafés?
This page lists 7 roasters, among them Càphê Roasters, Elixr Coffee, Herman's Coffee & Market, La Colombe and Ox Coffee. 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 Philadelphia 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
- Càphê Roasters: capheroasters.com, capheroasters.com
- Elixr Coffee: baristamagazine.com, elixrcoffee.com, sprudge.com
- Function Coffee Labs: functioncoffeelabs.com
- Herman's Coffee & Market: 6abc.com, phillymag.com, paeats.org
- La Colombe: lacolombe.com, phillymag.com
- Ox Coffee: oxcoffee.com
- Persimmon Coffee: persimmoncoffee.com, sprudge.com
- Rally: billypenn.com
- ReAnimator Coffee: reanimatorcoffee.com
- Rival Bros. Coffee Bar: ediblephilly.ediblecommunities.com, inquirer.com, rivalbros.com
- Suprema Coffee Roastery: phillymag.com
- Thank You Thank You Coffee Brewers: sprudge.com, sprudge.com
- Two Persons: phillyvoice.com, sprudge.com
- Ultimo Coffee: ultimocoffee.com, ultimocoffee.com
- Vibrant Coffee Roasters & Bakery: dailycoffeenews.com
- Vibrant Coffee Roasters: vibrantcoffeeroasters.com, functioncoffeelabs.com
More cities
All cities
Neighbourhoods and maps: © OpenStreetMap