A Guide to Charlotte Coffee Shops

Some things are best categorized in “waves”: the eras of feminism, music, or economics; a prolonged, abnormal weather spell; and American coffee culture. We’re neck-deep in the third coffee wave, in which craftsmanship is emphasized, and Charlotte coffee shops are riding the wave. We expect beans to be sustainably and diversely sourced. We want them lightly roasted so as not to overpower distinct flavors. We order from highly trained baristas who strategically craft our fancy-flavored lattes, cortados, macchiatos, and pour-overs. And we sip them in aesthetically-pleasing shops with the right music, enough outlets for our devices, and plenty of seating.

It hasn’t always been this way. Two preceding waves of coffee culture got us here. Colonists brought coffee to the U.S. in the 17th century, but it was consumed only by wealthy folks who could afford to import it. That is, until the Civil War, when the military included coffee in soldiers’ rations and fueled ordinary Americans’ coffee addictions. In response, the first U.S. coffee company, now Folgers, opened in 1850 to mass-produce the stuff, and by the 1920s, our coffee was cheap, plentiful, and a part of most folks’ daily lives. But the plain cups of joe offered little variety or excitement.

In 1966, the first major American coffee chain, Peet’s, opened. Starbucks followed in 1971. They commercialized coffee and taught Americans to be selective about what was in their cups. Menus lengthened in shops that also became “third places”—hangout alternatives to bars—depicted in ’90s-era TV shows like Seinfeld, Friends, and Gilmore Girls. 

With the new millennium came American coffee’s third wave, which created local coffee scenes like Charlotte’s by increasing demand for independent coffee shops. Fifteen years ago, Charlotte had just a handful of such shops, including Dilworth Coffee, Amelie’s, and Central Coffee. (In 2007, a poster in an online forum asked for Charlotte coffee shop recommendations. “There’s a Caribou in the Wachovia atrium,” someone replied. “Isn’t there a Dunkin Donuts next to Jersey Mike’s?” another asked.) 

Now, we have about as many coffee shops as breweries—around 100. And in classic Charlotte fashion, the brands serve up diverse origins, offerings, and atmospheres. Our coffee scene is unlikely to run out of steam anytime soon. —Tess Allen

Undercurrent Coffee 

2012 Commonwealth Ave, Plaza Midwood

Undercurrent Coffee’s home is the little building with warm-brown cedar shingles, plentiful windows, and a patinated metal sign near the corner of Commonwealth and Thomas avenues in Plaza Midwood. The clean, modern interior is decorated in warm whites and accents of cerulean blue. It feels both cozy and beachy—a nod to owners Todd and Erin Huber’s native Florida. The tables and couches are usually taken by customers chatting, working on laptops, journaling, or drawing. If you visit the bathrooms down a back hallway, you’ll pass a window where you can peer into Undercurrent’s intimate coffee lab, where staff trains and tests recipes. (It also hosts public classes.) When you sip an Undercurrent cappuccino or latte, you can taste the creativity and exactitude that it brews in the lab. (A counter-service location inside Optimist Hall.)

Not Just Coffee 

Multiple locations

When James Yoder was growing up in Kokura in southern Japan, his American parents owned a shop that offered coffee, snacks, and English tutoring. “I used to bake the oatmeal cookies we sold,” he says. In their 20s, James and his wife, Miracle, spent three years living near Milan, Italy, while working for nonprofits. “Obviously, the Italian coffee culture is so integrated into daily life,” he says. “And I just fell in love with the daily routine of it, the café experience.” 

Then they moved to Charlotte in 2009, where they “had no plans and were very, very broke with three little kids.” But James had long dreamed of opening his own coffee shop. “We thought, Well, if there’s a time to do it …” James trained at Counter Culture Coffee’s Charlotte center, and the following year, the Yoders opened the first Not Just Coffee in Optimist Park. “I just love the service, the hospitality, you know, meeting people and being able to serve coffee,” James says. “I didn’t even realize at the time that there was this giant void in the city for that.”

Today, Not Just Coffee has five shops throughout Charlotte. “The city, in general, has just grown so fast, and there’s been such an incredible amount of development. We’ve had developers come to us … because there’s just such a demand for good, quality retail to fill them.” But the Yoders have no plans to expand Not Just Coffee outside of Charlotte, and James says they’re focused on ensuring that they never grow too quickly to uphold quality. “Not Just Coffee,” he says, “is Charlotte’s local coffee shop.”  

Night Swim Coffee 

Multiple locations

After the Hubers opened Undercurrent Coffee in 2015, they became friends with the Yoders of Not Just Coffee. The coffee power couples had similar plans to keep their brands local, and neither roasted their own beans. “They decided they could do more good together than apart,” reads Night Swim’s website. The two couples opened Night Swim in 2021 as a joint roastery and café brand. Today, the roastery offers 10 blends, created with beans sourced from Central America, Africa, and Asia. The offerings “allow us to showcase and share the particular coffees and coffee growers that excite us the most.” Night Swim has five café locations, which serve craft coffee drinks and small bites, with three more in the works (in the Queensbridge Collective apartment tower at 1111 S. Tryon St., in the Greystar apartment complex in LoSo, and one on Hawkins Street in South End), each with the same clean, modern aesthetic. And while they’re all in Charlotte, the Hubers and Yoders believe Night Swim has the stamina to develop locations and partners across the country.

Wildroots Coffee

500 E. Morehead St., Ste. 160, South End

“If anybody hears this story, it’s so weird,” says Jasmine Koch, Wildroots Coffee’s owner. “I have a dream journal where I jot down everything, and this was one of them.” She gestures to the hand-painted wave murals on the interior walls. “I used a round trash can to paint those curves—very MacGyver.” Her ’70s-themed coffee shop also has a record player, beaded curtains, and lattes served in vintage mugs and bubble glasses. You can always order staples like Americanos, cappuccinos, and cold brews, but specialty lattes change with the season. Last summer, she had a Barbie-themed latte with strawberry cold foam. For spring, she served a Robin’s Nest Latte, topped with whipped cream, toasted coconut flakes, and chocolate eggs. The Banana Pudding Latte may not be available by the time you read this, but the Rosemary Honey Latte will still be around—and it’s splendid any time of year.

Sumaq Coffee

6259 South Blvd., LoSo

In Quechua, an Incan language, sumaq means “beautiful, pleasant, or delicious.” Brothers Joseph and Nick Castro opened the shop, on South Boulevard near Archdale Station, in early 2022, and it’s a place where you can set up your workstation and hang for a while. The interior is inspired by the Castros’ childhood home in Peru, with light woods, rattan accents, and a tree in the center of the space. The coffee bar serves a range of beverages, from cappuccinos to Chicha Morada (a Peruvian drink made from purple corn), and the kitchen churns out pastries, empanadas, sandwiches, and Mason-jar desserts. If you want a flavored latte that won’t make your blood sugar skyrocket, try the Sumaq Latte. The house-made Sumaq syrup contains panela, an unrefined whole cane sugar common in Latin America, which gives it a subtle, molasses-like flavor that doesn’t flood your taste receptors with nectar.

Smelly Cat Coffeehouse & Roastery

514 E. 36th St., NoDa

Smelly Cat, a cozy box at the heart of NoDa, has been around since 2000, long enough to wonder how many of its younger patrons get the Phoebe-on-Friends reference. Yet it’s survived as a neighborhood landmark even as NoDa has metamorphosed from hip and semi-dangerous to trendy and pricey; owner Cathy Tuman says it’s the longest-running locally owned coffee shop in the city.

She bought it in 2006 to be close to her son and daughter, whom she initially homeschooled, then enrolled at nearby Highland Mill Montessori; and because she loved the neighborhood’s “nonjudgmental” atmosphere. (She put both to work: son RJ, now 23, as a roaster; and Taylor-Lorraine, now 27, as a barista and manager.) Tuman says she aims to keep a family feeling at Smelly Cat, not just for her literal one but for NoDa longtimers. “New places may open, but customers always come back home. Smelly Cat Coffee is the OG,” she says via email. “People come back for the quality of service and product, but they also come because they grew up here: with the family, first coffee, first date, wedding proposals have all occurred here in the last 24 years. … The neighborhood grew, my children grew, my business grew. I am proud of all three.” 

220C Banh Mi & Coffee

10020 Monroe Rd., Ste. 180 

You could, of course, get the Vietnamese Iced Coffee without salted cream on top. But once you’ve had the cream, you recognize the pointlessness of that choice. Here’s the move: Use your straw to take a sip of the coffee, richly sweetened with condensed milk, beneath the cream blanket on top. Then elevate the straw and inhale a taste of the cocoa-topped cream. Alternate. Sweet, savory, sweet, savory. Sweet. This compact nook, in a Monroe Road complex just north of Matthews, demonstrates that a great coffee shop can distinguish itself in other ways. Opened two years ago, 220C—named for the baking temperature of bread—serves an array of savory pastries with combinations like spinach and feta, leek and parmesan, and guava and cream cheese. It’s gained local renown, too, for its banh mi sandwiches, crisp baguettes stuffed with pickles, cucumber, jalapeño, cilantro, buttery mayo, and your choice of protein (grilled chicken, grilled beef, tofu, or even sunny-side-up eggs—but crispy pork belly is a patron favorite).

Wooden Robot Coffee Bar

1440 S. Tryon St., Ste. 109, South End

Yes, Wooden Robot is a brewery. But its South End location is also a coffee bar. And it makes a hell of a pour-over. While Wooden Robot uses beans from a rotation of roasters—including Sump, Hex, and Black & White—its baristas grind, measure, time, bloom, and pour with an impressive precision that produces dependably
delicious coffee each time.

Archive CLT

2023 Beatties Ford Road, Ste. D, 

“I like to call Archive a culture shop,” owner Cheryse Terry told this magazine a few days after she opened in August 2022. “It’s a place that welcomes all but is a celebration of the Black experience.” In addition to selling Black memorabilia—vintage magazines, books, art, records, action figures, and more—Archive is a community space and coffee shop. If you like your coffee rich, order Archive’s signature Foxy Brown Latte, hot or iced, made with brown butter, vanilla, and brown sugar. Then throw on a record and cozy up with a book or magazine from Archive’s shelves. You can also take home a bag of beans, a light roast created for Archive by west-side roastery Enderly Coffee Co.

Provided Coffee

Multiple locations

When friends Preston Rollins and Cohen Malz launched their mobile coffee cart in 2021, they were just 18 and had been out of high school for less than five months. They had only some secondhand coffee equipment that Rollins had bought a year earlier and the money that Malz had just made from selling his 2012 Volkswagen GTI. They built their cart by hand and started selling coffee at public and private events.

“Our friends were like, ‘So, how’s that coffee cart going?’” Rollins recalls with a laugh, “like we were little kids running a lemonade stand.” But their youthful energy and unabashed belief in their business pulled them through, and the pair has built a brand that’s poised to be a leader of Charlotte coffee’s next generation.

During Provided’s first year and a half, Malz told customers they would open a brick-and-mortar shop uptown. But they had no firm plans. “In my mind, I’m going, This guy is crazy,” Rollins joshes. “I had to be like, ‘Stop telling people that!’” But then, owners of clothing store Street Commerce invited their friends to open a permanent location—in a 196-square-foot room attached to their uptown shop. The pair jumped at the opportunity and hired three more friends to help staff it. That shop was barely grinding when vintage clothing store Nothing New, also owned by friends, invited them to open a second location, in the huge warehouse in Concord that it shares with Southern Strain Beer Company. 

“You know, in truth, both of us are young, not married, no kids, no assets,” Malz says. “We literally had nothing to lose.”

Rollins, who worked in a coffee shop throughout high school, oversees Provided’s coffee and makes its popular homemade syrups, including seasonal favorites like banana bread and carrot cake. “I have a really niche, like, third-wave interpretation of what coffee can look like, but I try to make it as approachable as possible for customers. … Like, Cohen didn’t even like coffee when we opened, so I took it upon myself to present coffee to him in a way that he could gain an appreciation for it. And now he’s one of our best baristas.”

“Aw,” Malz says with a shy laugh. “Thanks, man.” 

Provided will move its flagship location to NoDa next year, and Rollins and Malz have other ambitious plans, too. But if their track record is any indication, they may be just crazy enough to work.

The Giddy Goat Coffee Roasters

1217 The Plaza, Plaza Midwood

This Plaza Midwood shop illustrates one of Charlotte’s emerging food trends: Some of the best dishes come from businesses that specialize in beverages. Giddy Goat is known for its empanadas but serves a splendid breakfast burrito densely packed with egg, cheese, and your breakfast meat of choice. It’s served only on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and it tends to sell out quickly. A good supplement to the hearty burrito is the Nitro Cold Brew, available in light, medium, and dark roasts. The last looks like Guinness in its glass and provides an extra zing of caffeine thanks to the infusion of nitrogen gas. The nitrogen also sweetens the coffee without sugar and gives it a smoother, creamier mouthfeel—another similarity to Guinness.

Central Coffee

719 Louise Ave., Dilworth

Like so many food and drink venues in Charlotte, Central Coffee sprang from Greek roots. Jimmy Kleto, who opened it with his wife, Louisa, in 2009, is the grandson of a pair of immigrants who settled in Charlotte in the 1950s. The shop occupies part of a building Kleto’s grandparents own, which has helped Central Coffee survive the flood of Plaza Midwood, Belmont, and Elizabeth development that surrounds it; the Kletos opened a South End location in 2016 but had to close six years later because of skyrocketing rent. But the original, one of Charlotte’s oldest independent coffee shops, hangs on as a comfortable, nothing-fancy, brick-walled spot where you can catch up on work or meet a friend or co-worker for a chat in the dim light. “We’ve been able to ‘hang around’ because of our neighbors,” Jimmy says. “You can come for coffee and see your friends and neighbors each morning. We’ve had kids in the ’hood who used to all ride their bikes over for hot chocolate, and now they’re in college and wanting to work at the shop on breaks.”

Enderly Coffee Co.

2620 Tuckaseegee, Enderly Park

Their coffee is sold at restaurants, bakeries, breweries, grocers, and farmers markets across the city, so it might come as a surprise that this local roaster has just one brick-and-mortar location. Spouses and former teachers Becky and Tony Santoro launched the wholesale company in 2012, then opened the 1,000-square-foot café in Enderly Park in 2018. (It’s in a renovated grocery store built in the 1940s.) Their slogan, “people first, coffee always,” is displayed on the front door, and a baby-blue coffee roaster affectionately called “Yoshi” sits inside the entrance. (The OG, “Toad,” is a 23-kilo roaster that lives in their warehouse alongside a forklift named Bowser. Their two vans are Mario and Luigi, natch.)

Order a cold brew, cappuccino, or chai and grab a seat at one of the long, wooden tables. Local art lines the walls, and the shelves beside the register are stocked with specialty blends to take home. If you plan to hang out for a bit, consider stopping by on Cinnamon Roll Saturday, when you can feast on fresh rolls from Honeybear Bake Shop from 8 a.m. until they sell out.

Lottie’s Café

210 E. Trade St., Ste. 104A, Uptown

Is the Airplane Latte coffee or dessert? After one sip (bite?), you’ll no longer care. It’s topped with a dollop of whipped cream and a full Biscoff cookie, and its cookie butter-coated rim is covered in more crushed Biscoff. Owner Ashley Hines, who opened Lottie’s in Queen City Quarter (formerly the Epicentre) in June, also served it at Nostalgia Hollow Co., the café and gift shop she previously owned in Kannapolis. The drink’s name is a play on air travel (Biscoff cookies are a quintessential in-flight snack—get it?), and customers loved it so much, she added it to the menu at Lottie’s. The café also serves breakfast bowls, sandwiches, and assorted pastries from Beyond Amazing Donuts (B.A.D.), and it has a retail space with apparel and home decor.

Backyard Brew

1218 East Blvd., Dilworth

As you approach Backyard Brew’s counter-service window on the covered front porch of a historic house in Dilworth, smiling co-owner and roaster TK (full name: Tariqu Khalil) greets you and, just for fun, hands you a teeny, plastic, yellow “lucky duck.” “We’re not a coffee shop,” he says. “We’re a make-you-happy shop! So don’t worry—order anything, and if you don’t like it, we’ll make you something else.” 

Perhaps sample a Turkish coffee, which is thicker and more aromatic than espresso, made from finely ground coffee beans brewed in a copper pot called a cezve. If you need a bite to eat, try the Jordanian Short Stack, four hyper-fluffy pancakes topped with cardamom, crushed pistachios, and rose-water simple syrup. TK and his brother and co-founder, Ryan Khalil, are first-generation Americans; their father immigrated from Jordan, their mother from Germany. The original Backyard Brew still operates in Palo Alto, California, where the Khalil brothers grew up.

“Wanna leave your mark?” TK asks. Inside, the white walls are covered in Sharpie’d names, messages, and drawings. The furniture and decor—on the front porch and in two interior rooms—has a homey, cobbled-together look. There are pictures of comic-book characters and Funko Pop collectibles stacked on the fireplace mantle in the main room. (Judging solely by his Star Wars shirt, TK is responsible.)

TK walks into the main room and starts handing customers coffee sleeves with a logo on it. “I forgot to give you these,” he says. “One of our awesome customers started this podcast!”

The Hobbyist

2100 N. Davidson St., NoDa 

The Hobbyist in Villa Heights makes A-plus coffee with Boone-based Hatchet Coffee Roasters’ beans. It has a solid selection of craft beers and wines, too, and you’ll never regret ordering one of its pastries, supplied daily by local bakeries around town. The interior is hip, cozy, and bustling—but not so much so that you can’t find a seat. But the best thing about The Hobbyist may be its espresso martini. It uses Statesville-based Southern Distilling Company’s Southern Star Double Shot bourbon cream liqueur in lieu of the usual Kahlúa. As the bartender measures it out alongside Wheatley Vodka and simple syrup, a barista carefully shuffles over with a freshly pulled Hatchet espresso shot to add to the mix. The bartender vigorously shakes the ingredients with ice, then strains it into a frosty coupe glass. For the final touch, she uses tweezers to float three dark-roasted coffee beans atop the glorious half-inch of fine foam that blankets the caramel-colored martini. The result has a balanced sweetness, no bitterness, and is as smooth as doggone velvet.

Summit Coffee

Multiple locations

It’s a common theme in Charlotte and elsewhere: Businesses franchise or grow too quickly, and quality declines. So far, at least, Summit Coffee is an exception. Summit’s “Basecamp” location, still around today, opened in downtown Davidson in 1998. Tim Helfrich bought it in 2003, and his brother, Brian, joined him in 2011. Brian then took over as CEO and majority owner in 2015 when Tim left to teach. Summit’s second location, on Davidson College’s campus, opened in 2013, and after Brian took over in 2015, he opened its roastery in Cornelius. 

But since 2020, when Summit opened to franchising opportunities, it’s exploded to include 14 locations in both Carolinas and Georgia, including nine in the Charlotte area, and with at least four more in the works. It also has a plan to move Summit’s headquarters and roastery to a 60-acre working farm in Davidson, complete with a restaurant, bakery, brewery, and 100 residential homes.

But the coffee remains consistently good. You can’t go wrong with any of it, but order the espresso soda. Add a flavored syrup if you’re feeling fancy or check if they have a version on their seasonal menu.

Grow Cafe

5342 Docia Crossing Road, Highland Creek

As working parents of three, including two daughters under 4, Stacy and Michael Baker struggled to find a place in Charlotte where they could work remotely while their children played. It inspired them to open Grow Cafe, a Highland Creek coffee shop that caters to parents and toddlers. “We’re No. 2 in the nation for banking, so it was crazy to me that, in 2024, we didn’t have a play café,” Stacy says. “This is designed for a post-pandemic atmosphere.” They serve Enderly Coffee and treats from Beyond Amazing Donuts (B.A.D.), plus juice boxes, hot chocolate, and cookies for the kiddos. They also host story times with local children’s authors and expert-led workshops. The Floral Arrangement Latte, inspired by their bouquet workshop, has notes of lavender, blueberry, honey, and mint and pairs marvelously with an open laptop and no interruptions from a rambunctious toddler.

Burr & Berry Coffee

Multiple locations

Burr & Berry is a savvy little business. We mean “little” not as an insult but a literal description of its drive-thru huts in LoSo, Matthews, and Indian Land, South Carolina. It takes advantage of another significant coffee trend: the liberal use of sugar. Like its offerings in general, the Maui Macchiato is rich and syrupy, served hot or over ice, and drizzled with coconut and caramel. Delicious and not suitable for children, who’d blast into the mesosphere after one of these.

Mugs

5126 Park Road, Ste. 1D (in Park Selwyn Terrace Shopping Center)

Mugs has a long menu of sweet, flavored drinks, and their drip coffee, from Matthews micro-roaster Magnolia Coffee Co., is solid enough. But factors beyond coffee draw you to this SouthPark shop. It’s cozy and buzzing with all kinds of folks. (The logo endearingly looks constructed from clip art.) There’s usually at least one group of friends playing Dungeons & Dragons, Connect 4, cards, or another game from the shop’s library. People with laptops, journals, drawing pads, or books set up camp at tables and on sagging, black leather sofas below local art. Mugs also welcomes dogs inside, and the staff is likely to offer your buddy a treat with permission.

Community Matters Café

821 W. 1st St., Uptown

The coffee, food, and ambience in this restored Third Ward factory are superb, but that’s all incidental when you understand the purpose of this café. Community Matters is an extension of Charlotte Rescue Mission, a nonprofit that provides free residential recovery services to people struggling with substance abuse and homelessness. The café is staffed by graduates of the program as they navigate reentry into society, and their T-shirts all say, “Hope” across the front. It makes your cold brew taste that much better.

Hex Coffee, Kitchen & Natural Wines

201 Camp Road, Ste. 103, Camp North End

In 2015, Chandler Wrenn and Tanner Morita launched Hex as a pop-up that served pour-overs and waffles and invited folks to stay a while. Today, Hex still brings people together over coffee in its sleek, full-service coffee shop and restaurant in Camp North End, as well as a South End sister concept called Stable Hand. It roasts its own beans, which it sells in stores as far away as Europe and Asia.

It’s also the only shop we found in Charlotte that makes coffee using a technique called the “Coffee Shot.” In short, Hex blends techniques for filter coffee and espresso to brew more consistent, made-to-order cups of coffee in less than a third of the time it takes to make a pour-over.

Don’t discount Hex’s food as standard coffee-shop fare, either. Morita, who oversees the kitchen, pulls from his Japanese-Hawaiian heritage to create breakfast and lunch dishes like Rice Porridge, with pork belly, charred cabbage, a fried egg, and togarashi seasoning. And, in March, Hex teamed up with Chef Hector González-Mora (formerly of El Toro Bruto and Chilito) to operate a new elevated-Mexican restaurant, Noche Bruta, in the shop on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights from 5-10.