The Midwest showed up in 2025 with new coffee shops blending menu inventiveness and creative programming with earnest and sincere service.
The openings in this list include roasters expanding into thoughtful brick-and-mortar shops, cafes designed as old-school third places and programs that connect coffee to culture, art and origin stories in tangible ways. Here are 10 new Midwest coffee destinations to celebrate as we head into the new year.
Daily Coffee News’ 2025 Year in Review is our annual look back at the people, places and ideas that shaped coffee this year. Read the full series.
Silverbird Roasting Touches Down with First Cafe in Minneapolis
Landing in the Kingfield neighborhood of south Minneapolis is the first brick-and-mortar cafe of the champion-piloted roasting company Silverbird Roasting. Coffees roasted by 2016 U.S. Coffee Roasting Champion and Silverbird Roasting Co-Founder Tony Querio are making their way to the 1,800-square-foot cafe, called Silverbird Coffee & More, which aims for sky-high quality and comfort… read more
Photo courtesy of Silverbird Coffee.
Washed Up Coffee Makes a Multiroaster Splash in Detroit
A fresh cafe called Washed Up Coffee is now open in Detroit’s West Village neighborhood, offering scratch-made drinks and a constantly updated selection of roasters and coffees. Industry veterans Emily Potter and Amélie Boulanger are the co-founders, applying decades of combined coffee experience to the clean-slate venture… read more
Photo courtesy of Washed Up Coffee.
Milli By Metric Coffee Goes the Extra Mile in Chicago
Quality-focused Chicago roaster Metric Coffee brought a three-year project to fruition this month, opening a new roastery, headquarters and all-day bakery cafe called Milli in Avondale. Inside a former 10,000-square-foot antique European furniture warehouse, Milli occupies the front of the house, offering views into the new Metric roastery and the Milli bakery… read more
Photo courtesy of Metric Coffee.
Beans and Boards Make a Statement at Thesis Coffee Collective in Minneapolis
Orders are up and screens are down at Thesis Coffee Collective, a new coffee shop in Uptown Minneapolis that offers a Wi-Fi-free “slow bar” experience. Small by design, the 1,000-square-foot, softly lit space emphasizes skate-park-like wood, concrete and metal materials while discouraging phone or laptop scrolling. Comfortable couches and tunes from vinyl records expand the backdrop for a coffee program that’s designed to spark conversation… read more
Photo courtesy of Thesis Coffee Collective.
Culture is Key at the CTRL Z Cafe in Chicago
The first brick-and-mortar coffee shop by roaster CTRL Z Coffee is now open on Chicago’s South Side, keying deeply into the coffees and flavors of the Philippines. Inside the warm, modern 400-square-foot cafe, natural wood tones abound through flooring and furniture. Stump-like wooden stools convey a grounded sensibility and encourage social interaction, while classic leather-topped metal stools lining the window counter invite people-watching… read more
Photo courtesy of CTRL Z.
Kazkara Coffee Roasters Adds Art to Craft in Greater Detroit
Kazkara Coffee Roasters recently celebrated the grand opening of its roastery cafe just outside of Detroit in Hazel Park, Michigan, where the company seeks to surround its carefully crafted coffees with artwork and a strong creative community. Kazkara adds art to craft by licensing original works from Latin American artists who hail from the places where the shop’s coffees are grown. While artists retain full ownership of the works, the customized licensing agreements can allow works to inspire coffee packaging and related merchandise… read more
Photo courtesy of Kazkara Coffee Roasters.
La Venta Café Completes Farm-To-Cup Connection from Colombia to Dubuque
Family-owned and vertically integrated coffee company La Venta Specialty Coffee recently completed a farm-to-cup connection with the opening of La Venta Café in Dubuque, Iowa. Guests to the cozy shop situated on Dubuque’s Cable Car Square are sipping brews made from beans grown on Finca Janeiro – El Diviso, a family farm in the village of La Venta de Cajibío in Cauca, Colombia… read more
Photo courtesy of La Venta Specialty Coffee.
Anticonquista Café Opens with Splashes of Color and Coffee in Chicago
Central America-connected roasting company Anticonquista Café opened its first brick-and-mortar coffee shop in Chicago this month, following five years of mobile and pop-up operations. The new Pilsen neighborhood cafe aims to liberate the local scene from monochromatic coffee experiences and cookie-cutter chains by offering bright bursts of color and culture. The new location also expands the company’s efforts to highlight the difficult work of farmers and farmworkers in bringing coffee to the Global North… read more
Photo by Lauren Reese, courtesy of Anticonquista Cafe.
Akron Coffee Roasters Openly Experiments at the ‘Coffee Lab’
In an environment that embraces innovation, Ohio’s Akron Coffee Roasters is workshopping new menu items and brewing experimental coffees at its fourth retail bar, The ACR Coffee Lab. The Coffee Lab occupies about 600 square feet on the ground floor of a 300,000-square-foot former BF Goodrich Tire factory building in downtown Akron that was transformed into Bounce Innovation Hub, a small business support nonprofit… read more
Daily Coffee News photo by Doug Brown.
Iowa’s Euphoria Coffee Finds a Happy Home in Calmar
Jubilation comes in the form of fresh-roasted coffee at the new Euphoria Coffee shop in Northeastern Iowa. A few miles north from Euphoria’s original location — which is now under new ownership in nearby West Union, Iowa — the second shop spreads out in an 1,800-square-foot space in Calmar, designed to feel like an instantly familiar Midwest hangout spot… read more
Photo courtesy of Euphoria Coffee.
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