The Best Places to Eat and Do in the United States

A bagel shop that graduated from popup to a proper Albany storefront, Hella Bagels turns out rounds with the kind of chew that makes you feel like your jaw is doing something worthwhile. The patio, ringed in beige and rust tones that happen to match the bagels, is a nice place to work through a sandwich. The San Francisco Chronicle named them the Bay Area's best.

The roaster sits right behind the bar where you can watch it, which tells you most of what you need to know about this small-batch coffee shop on Coast Highway 101. The roll-up garage door, the metal finishes, and a few tables inside and out keep things tight and unhurried. The owner sources beans across Latin America and Africa and often pulls the shots himself. Old Woodys drifting past on the 101 supply the rest of the ambiance for free.

The Steinway location of this Astoria coffee shop is wedged into a cheese-wedge-shaped room with a reclaimed-wood window bar that's made for watching the neighborhood go by. Kinship roasts its own beans nearby and pulls seasonal espresso drinks alongside pastries from Balthazar and cookies from The Good Batch. A round communal table anchors the middle, and the whole thing has the unhurried energy of a place run by people who actually live on the block.

The cheese-wedge-shaped room is the first thing you notice, followed by the reclaimed-wood window bar and the Steinway Street foot traffic rolling past it. Kinship is a neighborhood coffee shop that roasts its own beans nearby, and the seasonal drinks menu keeps regulars guessing. Pastries come from Balthazar, cookies from The Good Batch, and the whole operation has the warm, slightly chaotic energy of a place run by people who actually live on the block.

The back lounge is velvet, laptop-free, and clearly the whole point. Melting Cups is a Black-owned coffee shop a short walk from Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside, pouring Sey Coffee with pastries by day and pivoting to wine and beer come evening. A few tables out front catch the street; the cozy back room is for books, crosswords, or actual conversation, which is a quietly radical offer in 2024.

Tucked into a residential pocket on the Encinitas-Leucadia border, this coffee shop shares a building with an art studio and has the accidental-discovery feel to match. Inside, polished concrete meets warm wood and pops of pink. The coffee program leans into mocktail-style signature drinks alongside seriously sourced Colombian and Ethiopian beans. Baristas will walk you through either side of the menu without making you feel like a philistine for asking.

A pop-up coffee project built on barista salaries, which tells you something about the conviction behind it. Neverhome sources from roasters on both coasts and pairs them with an elaborate matcha program, wrapped in what the cofounders call Midwestern hospitality. On weekends the queue snakes down the street, which is either a warning or an endorsement depending on how you feel about waiting for your coffee.

The pink walls hit you before the espresso does. This coffee shop in San Jose's SoFa District sits among a row of Black-owned businesses and runs like a neighborhood living room, with a mezzanine overhead for anyone who came to read and stayed for three hours. Open mic nights and live music fill the place regularly, and the sidewalk seats are good for people-watching. Strangers here tend to introduce themselves unprompted, which is either charming or a lot, depending on your mood.

The vibrant pink walls are visible before you even open the door, which sets the tone for what Nirvana Soul is: a specialty coffee shop that also functions as a neighborhood living room. The mezzanine overlooks the floor, open mic nights fill the calendar, and the sidewalk seats are prime for people-watching. You go in to get work done and leave having met half the block instead.

The pink walls hit you first, then the smell of specialty coffee, then someone at the next table already talking to you. This is a coffee shop in San Jose's SoFa District, set among Black-owned businesses, with a mezzanine good for reading above the hum below. Open mic nights and live music fill it after dark, and the sidewalk seats are ideal for watching the neighborhood do its thing.

Jiro-style ramen is the calling card here, a Tokyo-born style less famous in the Bay Area than tonkotsu but arguably more interesting, with its shoyu-pork broth running fattier and more rustic, pork fat globules and all. The thick, chewy noodles come from a local craft purveyor, and a fistful of raw chopped garlic goes in to sharpen everything up. This San Jose ramen shop is doing real work diversifying a scene that tends to default to the same few styles.

A ramen shop in a Santa Clara strip mall run by a chef who keeps a tight grip on his broths, making the noodles in-house and letting clean, well-built basics like a smoky shoyu do most of the talking. The real reason regulars check the calendar is the rotating specials, which have swung from crab ramen finished with pistachio oil to buckwheat noodles built around dried red snapper. The San Francisco Chronicle puts it among the Bay Area's best.

Smoke hangs in the air from the moment you walk into this small ramen shop in Fremont, which is a pretty good preview of what's coming. The specialty is tsukemen, where thick chewy noodles and a deeply concentrated dipping broth arrive separately. When the broth runs low, ask the staff to top it with hot chicken stock. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best ramen spots, and the smoke and pork anchovy depth make a reasonable case.

The room bends at odd angles under the Pulaski Bridge, which sets the tone for this coffee shop that has always done things its own way. Sweetleaf roasts its own beans and bakes its own pastries, with a well-stocked case that runs heavily vegan and gluten-free. Choose your corner: a quiet laptop nook, the social bar, a long bench out front, or the back room with a turntable you're free to use.

The room bends at a wacky angle at the foot of the Pulaski Bridge, and the vibe inside reads AC/DC, not ambient folk. Sweetleaf is a coffee shop that roasts its own beans and does its own baking, so the pastry case is stocked and the coffee is strong. A laptop nook sits near the entrance for the heads-down crowd, while the back has a record room where you're welcome to spin something while you drink.

The room bends at a wacky angle where Jackson Ave meets the Pulaski Bridge, which sets the tone for this coffee shop that plays AC/DC instead of something earnest. Sweetleaf roasts its own beans and does its own baking, so the pastry case is stocked and the coffee hits hard. A laptop-only alcove keeps the workers corralled, the main bar is for lingering, and the back room has a turntable you're welcome to use.

Tsukemen is the format here: chilled house-made noodles served separately from a thick, concentrated broth so gelatinous it coats every strand on contact. The broth, built from chicken, pork, dried anchovies, and bonito, is intense enough that you can ask for dashi to thin it for sipping once the noodles are gone. This San Mateo shop is the first U.S. location of an old-school Tokyo institution credited with popularizing the style.

The bagels here start as whole wheat grain, stone-milled on-site before the dough even exists. This Petaluma bagel shop runs a 36-hour process using sourdough starter, so the finished product lands somewhere between New York tradition and Northern California obsession. Toppings skew local and organic, and the menu stretches from classic to pesto and pizza. The San Francisco Chronicle named it the Bay Area's best.

A former gas station on the road to Waimea Bay, now a multi-roaster coffee shop where surfers and day-trippers fuel up before the beach. The cold brew concentrate is a house signature, and single-origin offerings lean heavily on Sweet Bloom out of Denver. Sourdough kolaches rotate with the seasons, and a macadamia nut latte squares the "we're in Hawaii" circle neatly. The whole operation started out of a 1966 Ford Econoline, which feels about right for Haleiwa.

Wood-paneled walls, low ceilings, and stacks of empty beer cans that the owners drank themselves make this Gateway District beer bar feel like a 1970s Midwest den that somehow got transplanted to Las Vegas. The rotating draft list is the point, and bartenders will steer you through it without making you feel like a student. The Underberg shot at the end is apparently non-negotiable. Wildsam named it one of the 50 most essential bars in America.

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.

The roasting happens right on the premises, so the warehouse near Kailua Town smells like a very good decision before you've even ordered. This is a coffee shop and roastery in one, with a rotating lineup of in-house coffees that runs from locally grown Hawaiian beans to more experimentally processed options. They also hold public classes if you want to understand what you're drinking rather than just drinking it.

A pour-over coffee shop tucked inside BoxJelly, a co-working and arts hub in Ward Village, where the rotating single-origin lineup has included Cup of Excellence and World Barista Competition coffees. The team archives every coffee they've ever served on their website, which is either obsessive or reassuring depending on your relationship with spreadsheets. Local bakers and chefs pop up regularly, so the counter scene shifts.

A roaster-first coffee shop with a direct line to specific farms in Honduras, Vivid sources with enough intention that the espresso rotates single-origin rather than hiding behind a house blend. The cafe is spacious enough that a laptop crowd shares the room with catch-up conversations without either feeling intruded upon. The affogato with local Shy Guy Gelato is one of those menu items that earns its place by being genuinely strange and good.

Each location gets its own interior, and the newest one near San Pedro Square Market prompted the owners to describe it as "Willy Wonka meets coffee," which is doing a lot of work but isn't wrong. This specialty coffee shop runs a destination-drink menu named after cities around the world, murals from local artists covering the walls, and enough design ambition that the mayor showed up to cut the ribbon. A chain, yes, but one that treats each outpost as its own thing.

Each drink on the menu is named for a city, and ordering feels a little like picking a destination. Voyager Craft Coffee is a specialty coffee shop with six locations around the Bay Area, each with its own interior design concept. The Cupertino outpost keeps things bright and considered, the kind of place where the latte art and the wall art get equal attention. Good for a slow pour-over or a signature drink you won't find at the usual chains.

Each drink on the menu is named for a city, and ordering feels a little like spinning a globe. Voyager Craft Coffee is a specialty coffee shop that started as a cart in a garage and grew into six locations, each designed as its own thing. The aesthetic runs toward murals, bold color, and what the team calls Willy Wonka meets coffee, which sounds like a joke until you're standing inside. Good for a slow pour-over or something more adventurous.

Each drink on the menu is named for a city, which sets the tone for this specialty coffee shop near San Pedro Square Market. The space leans hard into color and murals by local artists, described by the team as "Willy Wonka meets coffee," and it mostly earns the comparison. Voyager Craft has grown into a multi-location San Jose fixture, but each spot gets its own interior treatment rather than a copy-paste aesthetic.

Each drink on the menu is named for a city, Tokyo to Santiago, which tells you what kind of coffee shop this is before you've even ordered. Voyager Craft is a specialty cafe with six locations around San Jose, each with its own interior, though the Park Ave spot goes especially hard on color, murals by local artists, and what the founders describe as "Willy Wonka meets coffee." The vibe skews young and neighborhood-proud, and the pour-overs are taken seriously.

Deep-fried puri shells arrive golf-ball-size and hollow, packed with cool pimento cheese softened by sweet onion jam, and that alone explains why Tacoma's Grann has Seattle making the drive south. The restaurant calls itself Southern BBQ, Creole, and Indian fusion, but the food lands somewhere past hyphenation, like a cuisine that simply grew up that way. Dramatic green walls and a tiger photograph that somehow matches the room give the dining room real personality.

The shihan ful arrives with two crusty sourdough rolls and no apology for the carbs. This Eritrean cafe in Oakland has been a neighborhood anchor for ages, the kind of spot where newcomers immediately feel like regulars. Fava beans, berbere, crumbled cheese, and a hit of lemon make that breakfast stew hard to skip, though the lunch tibsy, a spiced meat stew over injera, holds its own. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Top 100 Bay Area restaurants.

The salt-and-pepper chicken wings at this old-school Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown have a following that borders on devotional. Wok-tossed with garlic and jalapeño, the crunch when you bite in is audible across the room, which is either a party trick or a warning, depending on your table neighbors. The rest of the menu holds its own too, but the wings are why regulars come, and why they stay a little longer than planned.

A pint-sized deli on Telegraph where a fine-dining pedigree gets quietly redirected into sandwiches. The fried chicken, dusted in Sichuan peppercorns and Korean chile flakes, is the one that put this place on the map, but the sisig bolillo, fatty pork head in a crisp bubbly roll, makes a strong case for staying longer. The menu shifts with the season, so cold days bring hotter sandwiches. The San Francisco Chronicle put it at number 30 in the Bay Area.

A turquoise mariscos truck parked in a strip-mall lot, doing Mazatlán-style seafood with chiltepin chiles as the house religion. The chiltepin is tiny, round, and hits with a fast, focused heat that bypasses polite warning entirely. Everything is raw and marinated to order, so the aguachiles arrive electric with lime and pepper. Outdoor communal tables come stocked with tostadas and a crate of bottled hot sauces for anyone negotiating their limits.