The Best Coffee Shops in the West

Denver’s Blue Sparrow is a classic neighborhood coffee shop. Its mission is to showcase coffees from some of America’s best roasters, featuring them on a rotating basis. Roasters the shop has featured have included Alabaster from Williamsport, Pennsylvania; Land & Water from Santa Rosa, California; and Tailored Coffee Roasters from Eugene, Oregon.

Kombucha, Japanese-style iced coffee (which is brewed hot and flash chilled over ice), and CBD-infused iced coffee are on tap, and pastries from local bakeries, including Black Box Bakery and Genova’s Biscotti, are on sale.

With two Oahu locations, Brew & Foam has won over the locals with its perfectly prepared menu of classic coffee drinks as well as new creations like the Undertow (espresso, coconut syrup, and half & half), Dawn Patrol (drip coffee, grass-fed butter, and cold-press coconut oil), and Haupia Mocha (espresso, cacao, steamed milk, and coconut whipped cream). The shops also offer a small selection of waffles, sandwiches, and pastries.

Buckin’ Brew Espresso was founded by the mother-daughter team of Kendra Chorniak and Abby VanValkenburg in 2017 inside a former gas station just outside Casper, Wyoming. The shop serves a full menu of hot, iced, and frozen espresso drinks, iced coffee and tea, cold-brewed coffee, hot chocolate, fruit smoothies, and other custom drinks (including the popular white chocolate mocha with caramel drizzle), as well as baked goods from a local bakery. For those really looking for a caffeine kick, there are also several specialty drinks made with Red Bull and flavored syrups.

This Lake Tahoe favorite, founded by Craig and Marlo Quillin and named after their son Clyde, is on a mission to provide the highest quality coffee available, from farm to cup. Clyde’s Coffee Roasting Company has partnered with Vournas Coffee Trading, a boutique coffee company, in order to provide direct-sourced, hand-picked organic and fair-trade coffee beans from fine specialty estates and co-ops.

Clyde’s website goes into exquisite detail on each type of coffee the company offers, from growing region to bean type to processing technique to tasting notes. Single estate coffees include Costa Rica “El Tigre,” Guatemala Huehuetenango SHB “Dulce Leonarda,” and Mexico Rancho San Francisco. You might have heard that drinking a good cup of coffee is like sipping a fine wine, and after a visit to Clyde’s, you’ll understand why.

Whereas most coffee shops either roast their own coffee or serve coffee sourced domestically, at Dayglow, they’re serving coffee from some of the world’s most renowned coffee roasters, including Father’s Coffee in the Czech Republic, Process Coffee in Northern Ireland, and La Cabra in Denmark. Each month the shop features several roasters

Dayglow also sells coffee by the bag, most of which comes from Coffee Collective in Denmark. The shop has also become popular for its creative coffee drinks and fresh vegan doughnuts.