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Baristas at work in a cozy café, using coffee machines to prepare drinks.

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Coffee

Best Coffee Shops in Chicago

Roasters and cafés worth crossing a neighborhood for.

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Chicago has a deep coffee scene: Intelligentsia started here in 1995, and roasters such as Metric, Dark Matter and Big Shoulders followed. Most of the cafés below roast their own beans.

The list runs from the Loop outward through the West Loop, West Town, Ukrainian Village, Wicker Park, Bucktown and Lincoln Park, so it can be walked in two or three sections.

Addresses and links on this list were checked against each place's own website on 2026-09-18.

Places on this checklist

  1. Intelligentsia Coffee (Millennium Park)

    The Loop

    The Loop coffeebar of the roaster founded in Chicago in 1995. This one opened on Randolph in 2006, a short walk from Millennium Park.

  2. Sawada Coffee

    West Loop

    The first US café from Hiroshi Sawada, a latte-art world champion. The house drink is the military latte — matcha, espresso, vanilla and cocoa.

  3. Metric Coffee

    West Town

    Metric's flagship café and training room on Fulton Street, west of the West Loop. Its second café and roastery, Milli, is up in Avondale.

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  1. Big Shoulders Coffee

    West Town

    The West Town café of a Chicago roaster with eight shops around the city; its head roaster took the 2025 US Coffee Roasting Championship.

  2. Dark Matter Coffee (Star Lounge)

    Ukrainian Village

    Star Lounge, the Chicago Avenue room of Dark Matter — a local roaster that gives each of its eight cafés a different character.

  3. La Colombe (Wicker Park)

    Wicker Park

    A tall, brick-and-glass room right by the Damen Blue Line stop — easy to find, and large enough that you can usually sit down.

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  1. Ipsento 606

    Bucktown

    On Milwaukee Avenue by the 606 trail, from a roaster that has been roasting its own coffee in Chicago since 2006.

  2. The Bourgeois Pig Café

    Lincoln Park

    A café in an 1890s row house, open since 1993, where the sandwiches are named after novels and the upstairs is fitted out as a library.

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