A Cleveland coffee journal
One couple. One new coffee shop a week. Every honest sip.
We’re Sarah and Joe. After we got married, we started visiting a different Cleveland-area coffee shop every week and comparing notes after the first sip. 31 shops later, here’s everything we’ve learned — scored, ranked, and occasionally roasted.
31
shops reviewed
3+
years of Saturdays
40
points on the scorecard
Our Top 5
The shops we keep coming back to — the shortlist we hand to anyone who asks.
The Scoreboard
Every shop we’ve scored, out of 40 points across eight categories — from how the coffee tastes to whether you can actually find parking and get work done. Revisits get re-scored and averaged.
1  Lekko | 35 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
2  Roasted | 34 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
3  Coffee Therapy | 33 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
4  Green Goat Cafe | 32 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
5  Ready Set Coffee! | 31 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
6  Bites Cafe | 30 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
7  Dahlia Coffee Co | 30 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 5 |
8  The Grind | 30 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
9  The 27 Club | 29 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
10  Civilization | 28 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
11  Koffie Cafe | 28 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
12  Rising Star Coffee Roasters | 28 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 5 |
13  Revive Cafe | 27 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
Tap a column to re-sort. Categories are scored 1–5 per visit; shops with a ×n badge show the average of their scored visits. Darker caramel = higher score.
Before the scorecard
We reviewed these 18 shops in our first year, before we invented the 40-point scorecard — the write-ups are still worth a read.
-
Heartwood Coffee Roasters -
The Judith -
Phoenix Coffee Company -
Cool Beans (Medina) -
Caffeine -
Index Coffee and Books -
Edda Coffee Roasters -
Lionheart Coffee -
The Daily -
Goodkind Coffee -
Scoot! Cold Brewed Coffee -
The Copper Moon -
The Loop -
The Hive Cle and Milk+Honey -
5 Points Coffee and Tea -
Brewella’s -
Metropolitan Coffee -
Solstice Roasters
Latest reviews
Fresh off the saucer — our most recent visits.
30/40 The Grind
July 13, 2024
32/40 Green Goat Cafe
June 15, 2024
27/40 Revive Cafe
June 1, 2024
30/40 Bites Cafe
April 20, 2024
31/40 Ready Set Coffee!
April 6, 2024
29/40 The 27 Club
March 30, 2024
33/40 Coffee Therapy
March 23, 2024
28/40 Koffie Cafe
February 24, 2024
30/40 Dahlia Coffee Co
January 27, 2024
About us
My husband and I started a tradition after we got married: to visit coffee shops in the greater Cleveland area. Each week, I would find a random coffee shop and we would go there to share our opinions with each other after the first sip. The first coffee shop that we went to was called Coffee Coffee Coffee, and it would be in our top 5, but sadly went out of business early in 2023.
So, now we want to provide an educational site about coffee in the Cleveland area for people like us who want to know: Does this place have good parking? Is this a good place to get work done? Is the coffee good?
Our Plants
Every good coffee shop has plants. We hold ourselves to the same standard, with mixed results.
Keith
- Watch out for Keith
- Breed: Spineless (sorry) Yucca
- Very close to being killed by our cat Sebastian
Geoffrey (RIP)
- He comes from money
- Breed: Pachira Aquatica (say that 10 times fast)
- Killed in cold blood by our cat Sebastian
What makes a good coffee shop?
Plants, exposed wood, local art — and occasionally a decorative bike. We wrote down the formula.