SLC's Best Coffee

The Salt Lake City coffee scene is alive and well. In this city you don't have to go far to find a good cup of brewed bean, there are plenty of options. At 9th and 9th there is Coffee Garden which brews Logan, Utah's own Ibis coffee. To experience the college coffee scene there is Salt Lake Coffee Break on 400 South. Just down the street from Coffee Break is the Salt Lake Roasting Company which has set the pace for all the others in the SLC for years. Then there is Coffee Noir which is a nice close-to-campus option as well. The Avenues neighborhood has a few choices including Java Joe's serving a chocolate covered espresso been with every cup that adds a nice touch. They are located on the corner of 1st Avenue & E Street just a block from Jack Mormon Coffee.

On the West Side of Salt Lake City is, of course, Mestizo Coffeehouse. Mestizo is a great place for coffee, but more than that, it is a community who is seeking to impact the city through the arts, social activism, and community focused projects. Mestizo is also home to Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts (MICA). Check out this article in Salt Lake Magazine about what they are doing in their community.

Salt Lake City also has a host of other coffee shops including the local chain Beans and Brews and, a number of Starbucks locations. However, if you want simply the best coffee Salt Lake City has to offer look no further than the neighborhood that an article in Sunset Magazine's November 2009 issue called a place "full of creative, Bohemian energy." Contributing to this buzz in the neighborhood is the Kayo Gallery, the Broadway Theatre (where there will be plenty of Sundance action during the next 2weeks!), and Slowtrain Music. Amidst the creative Bohemian energy is Nobrow Coffee and Tea Company at 315 East Broadway. Here you will find not only 1 of just 2 coffee shops in the city that offers coffee using the single-cup method, but coffee from Chicago based Intelligentsia.

Perhaps I am a bit overly excited about my coffee and so upon returning to the city after being in St. Louis for a few years I discovered Nobrow and was reassured that it was o.k. to be living back behind the Zion curtain! Prior to living in St. Louis, I was living in Chicago's Lake View neighborhood where I would frequent one of Intelligentsia's 3 Chicago locations, Intelli's Broadway Coffeebar. Intelligentsia is, according to Michaele Weissman, author of God in a Cup: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee, "the largest and arguably the most influential of the elite speciality roasting companies." Intelli and it's founder and CEO, Geoff Watts, the best-known speciality coffee buyer in the world, "buys more highly ranked coffee than any other elite roaster," says Weissman. (pg. 18)

Salt Lake's coffee culture is alive with great coffee, but nobody in SLC but Nobrow is selling the best coffee in the world. If you are in town for Sundance or a local looking for good coffee head over to Broadway and check out Nobrow. Enjoy some fine coffee today Salt Lake City. Support your baristas and the many fine independent coffee shops the city has to offer!