The all-day coffee shop and bar from two Northside Social alums brought pour-overs, rotating art exhibits, and mixed drinks to downtown Takoma Park in 2017. The popular cafe has since doubled its seat count by growing into the space next door. A custom espresso machine built for the restaurant is fed a strict diet of Counter Culture Coffee, and a front counter with a white quartz top features a display case stocked with pastries and other impulse buys. Place pickup and delivery orders here.

Lost Sock Roasters opened its first retail shop in 2021. It’s narrow, yet comfortable storefront in Takoma serves pour-overs showcasing beans from Ecuador and other South American countries as well as toasts, cheesy pan de yuca, and Argentine-style empanadas. The small-batch coffee company could be found long before opening its first shop, selling brewed coffee at Call Your Mother and A Baked Joint, among other places. Order online here.

Since opening in 2017, this cafe from Veronica Cooper (aka Miss V) has provided its Northeast neighborhood with an open, collaborative space to sip freshly brewed coffee and browse products from local vendors. The small business is deeply invested in local arts, serving as a space for live music and pop-up markets.

One of the most respected small-batch roasters in D.C., Qualia operates a tiny storefront in Petworth and an outpost in Eckington, both open for pickup (order here). Beans come from Ethiopia, countries throughout Latin America, and locales such as the Indonesian island of Flores. Qualia also offers local delivery for retail beans within three days of roasting.

Royal is one of the first shops to occupy the all-day cafe niche in the D.C. scene. In the morning, go for Counter Culture Coffee and matcha lattes, and don’t forget to add a breakfast sandwich or arepa. There’s also a bottomless drip for $7 (8 a.m. to 3 p.m.). Order takeout here.

Café Unido, which is housed in Latin market La Cosecha, is the first U.S. location of a Panamanian coffee chain. Founders Benito Bermudez and Mario Castrellon — a chef with a place on San Pellegrino’s list of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants — source beans directly from growers in Panama and donate a percentage of their sales to social and environmental projects.

Along with a house espresso from Third Coast Coffee and its Madcap’s Six-One-Six drip coffee, Slipstream sells single-origin coffees that come in carafes accompanied by informative cards. The original in Logan Circle has a patio with prime views of a bustling corner on 14th Street NW and wall-to-wall windows inside that bathe the space in natural light. Avocado toasts and light rice bowls here are some of the best in the city, and the cafe turns into a restaurant with a cocktail bar at night. There are sibling cafes in Navy Yard and a new location downtown. Preorder for pickup here.

The former Adams Morgan pop-up is now a standalone cafe in NoMa that employs a range of brewing gadgets like AeroPress, V60, Chemex, French press, syphon, and a Kalita Wave dripper. The rotating lineup shows love for domestic roasters (Heart Coffee Roasters out of Portland, Brooklyn-based Forty Weight Coffee Roasters) and beans from Kenya, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. A second location landed in Arlington in the former Java Shack. Order for pickup here.

This H Street NE coffee shop is part of D.C.’s integral Ethiopian food and drink scene. Along with espresso drinks like the Sidamo macchiato, the cafe has chai and loose leaf teas served with a pot of water, allowing patrons to stay a while and relax. There are also smoothies and sandwiches for breakfast and lunch.

Erik Bruner-Yang’s versatile Taiwanese-Cambodian restaurant on H Street NE contains multitudes. Maketto sells streetwear, houses a record store, and has a cafe component that brews local roasts.

Virginia’s women-owned RĀKO Coffee Roasters opened up an all-day cafe in Clarendon in 2021, featuring standard espresso drinks and creative specialties like a vanilla latte dressed up with volcanic black salt. After breakfast and brunch, the cafe switches over in the late afternoon to serving glasses of wine, cocktails, and cheese boards. There’s a Capitol Hill pop-up right now too at 27 Independence Avenue SE, and new shops are on the way on 14th Street within Studio Theatre and near Amazon HQ2 in Crystal City.

With a D.C. history spanning more than a century, Swing’s Coffee Roasters boasts multiple locations: two downtown and a flagship roastery in a window-lined industrial space in Del Ray. The coffee bar in the Alexandria building hosts free cupping labs and offers growler refills of cold brew.