Chicago’s Best Coffee Shops

eATLAS has teamed up with necessary & sufficient coffee and the Near South Planning Board on the Get to Know Printers Row Scavenger Hunt. Held from November 16^th – 24^th, the game requires participants—either solo competitors or teams of up to five people—to visit seven stops in the historic neighborhood and complete tasks or solve clues, with a chance to win more than $800 in prizes from local businesses. A $5 registration fee benefits the NSPB. Coffee lovers can also take our free Lakeview Coffee and Desert Crawl.

By Dave Lifton (@daveeatschicago)

Chicago’s most famous coffee shop is unquestionably the Starbucks Reserve Roastery. The world’s largest location of the ubiquitous brand is not your neighborhood Starbucks, nor is it the one a few blocks away from your neighborhood Starbucks. It’s a five-story concept, with each floor providing something different, including an Italian bakery and a cocktail bar. The Roastery is a pilgrimage for Starbucks-lovers, and there’s often a line just to get inside during peak tourist season. 

Although there are Intelligentsia and Fairgrounds shops that serve great cups in the Loop and River North, most of the cafés that reflect Chicago’s coffee culture are outside the heart of the city.

Our partner in the scavenger hunt, necessary & sufficient coffee, is proud of its commitment to community at its take-out window in Logan Square and café in Printers Row. In addition to serving lattes using ethically sourced coffee and decadent sweet and savory pastries from local bakeries, necessary & sufficient pays its staff a living wage with benefits and hosts events with artisans.   

The South Loop is home to a coffee shop built into a place of music history. Overflow Coffee is in the former headquarters of Vee-Jay Records, which put out ‘60s R&B classics hits like Gene Chandler’s “Duke of Earl,” Betty Everett’s “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)” and Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man,” as well as the first American releases by the Beatles. The label’s legacy is reflected in the memorabilia on the walls and its lattes, the Vee-Jay (honey and cinnamon) and the Record Row (Nutella).

Volumes in Wicker Park combines your favorite neighborhood café with your favorite small, independent bookshop. Browse the staff-curated stacks while enjoying coffee from award-winning roaster Metropolis and pastries from Aya in West Town. Volumes has twice-weekly story-times for children, poetry readings, and other events.

A few blocks away from Volumes is Ipsento, where lattes contain house-made syrups with lavender or cardamom rose, or a signature latte that adds coconut cream, honey, and cayenne pepper. Pair one with some sweet potato mini-donuts.

Vietnam’s coffee traditions are on display at Vietfive in the West Loop. The family that owns the shop grows the beans on its farm in Vietnam, and the menu at the café serves beverages that use condensed milk, ube, and coconut sweet foam along with banh mi sandwiches, bowls, and empanadas.

Don’t expect such exotica at another West Loop spot. Lou Mitchell’s serves coffee, not fancy lattes or artisanal pastries. But the traditional Greek diner, which opened in 1923, boasts that its exclusive light roast blend is the “world’s finest” on the vintage neon sign above the door.

Further out west is Metric, a haven for coffee lovers amid an industrial corridor. The owners travel to small farms around the world to select the beans, which are roasted in-house on a pair of antique machines. The end products are more expensive than most, but Metric is committed to fairness and sustainability.

Dark Matter Coffee launched in 2007 and has grown to eight locations, including Osmium (Lakeview), Meddle (West Loop), and Mothership (Ukrainian Village). Its shops are as loved for the funky, colorful street art on the walls as they are for drinks like the Mayan Mocha and its spicier cousin, the Dolor de Oro. Dark Matter was named Coffee Bar of the Year in 2020 by Imbibe.

On the Far North Side, coffee meets with Chicago’s thriving theater scene in Andersonville, where The Understudy is both a café and a bookstore with more than 3,500 scripts, biographies, and other titles related to the craft of theater. Nearby, in Edgewater, the national park-inspired Rivers & Roads specializes in signature and monthly lattes with gluten-free and vegan house-made syrups, plus half-pound cookies available in seven flavors. 

The author of this article restricts himself to one cup of coffee in the morning, which he makes in a French press because it’s easiest to clean.