The Best Coffee Shops Near Graduate by Hilton Bloomington, by the Record

The 2025 U.S. Brewers Cup champion works the bar here, which tells you something about the coffee before you've tasted it. Helm is a roastery cafe selling small-batch microlots in 100-gram bags, roasted on site and pulled toward clarity over comfort. Gesha varieties, floral aromas, lightly roasted. It's also, somehow, the official coffee sponsor of Gen Con, which means the tabletop gaming crowd found good taste before the coffee crowd found them.

1. US Coffee Championships #1 · U.S. Brewers Cup · Justin Bull
2. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee In Indianapolis

A coffee shop inside a converted firehouse, which means the bones are right even before the espresso arrives. Tinker roasts its own beans and has built a quiet cult following across Indianapolis on the strength of what it calls Hoosier hospitality, a phrase that sounds like a bumper sticker until the staff actually pulls it off. Eight locations around the city, including a couple at the airport, all tracing back to a single used roaster and a good book about coffee.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee In Indianapolis