30 Amazing Places to Celebrate #NationalCoffeeDay
Happy National Coffee Day! While this is every day (or every three hours) for many of us, that doesn’t mean we should just gloss over this very important holiday. First of all, chains like Dunkin’ Donuts, Peet’s, and Tim Horton’s are giving away free cups of coffee, so HOORAY COFFEE! Secondly, National Coffee Day encourages us to come together as a coffee-loving community and celebrate! How are you spending your National Coffee Day (besides going to work and drinking copious amounts of coffee)?
Check out these amazing, bizarre, and super cool coffee shops and cafes from all over the world. It may be National Coffee Day, but we’re gonna crank this up and include all kinds of international shops where you can enjoy a cup of coffee —and then some.
1. The Cat Cafe
Neko Cafe in Japan (“neko” means “cat” in Japanese) invites you to bring your kitty along while you re-energize with some java. Sound pretty purrferct to me (sorry, I had to).
2. Hammock Café
The reason you may be grabbing a cup of coffee is stress, but with a cafe (also in Japan) that provides you with a hammock, you can totally take fifteen to chill and enjoy your drink.
3. Goat Café
There is for real a goat cafe in Tokyo, and there really are goats. If you do end up visiting Sakuragaoka Cafe, be sure to eat your pastries before the goats get to them (they’re known to get a little hangry) first.
4. Playscape café
Moomah, which is based out of New York City, is no ordinary coffee shop. It’s kind of like the Montessori school of coffee shops, since you can “chill out, learn, create, and discover” while you drink your coffee. It’s also kid-friendly! (They get hot chocolates, of course.)
5. Earthquake (Disaster) Café
In Lloret de Mar, Spain, there is a cafe that is designed to give you the experience of frequent 7.8 earthquakes. On purpose. The servers walk around with helmets, and the food is served in heavy dishes to avoid, uh, shattering.
6. Car/park café
Although it may seem like you’re sipping on a mocha in the middle of a busy street, it’s actually just an illusion. I’m not sure if this cafe in Japan is really the place to go if you don’t want to feel like you’ll get hit by a car at any given moment. But maybe that’s just me?
7. East Beachside Café
A cafe owner in Little Hampton, UK wanted to prevent graffiti, as well as provide his customers with an awesome beach view. His solution? Avoid flat surfaces by constructing a building with layers that sort of build upon each other.
8. Robo café
In Osaka, Japan, there’s a cafe run entirely by robots. It’s like Meet the Jetsons, but with coffee.
9. Sewing café
Only in Paris can your wildest dreams come true. And by “wildest dreams” I mean getting your caffeine on AND sewing up a storm.
10. The Constantly Rebranding coffee shop
Mexico’s Cielito Querido Cafe doesn’t really believe in cohesive design or branding. The cups and interior never matches, its identity a lost blur of fonts and colors. Basically it’s the anti-Starbucks in terms of aesthetics.
11. Tattoo/music/art/coffee/dessert café
In Paris, you can buy a coffee, get a tattoo, listen to live music, nom on some sweets, and walk through an eclectic art gallery. If all this sounds good to you, schedule a visit to Horror Picture Tea.
12. Treehouse café
Although this cafe isn’t actually in a real tree (it’s made of cement) it still kind of feels like you’re drinking coffee in a tree. Which is always a good thing.
13. Dumpster cafes
These cafes are purely constructed out of trash. Environmentally appetizing, the FOUNDation project is all about reusing materials and creating things with them —including coffee shops.
14. Hanging books café
Adore hot coffee with your book? McNally Jackson Books in New York is a book store that uses books ornamentally to create one of the coolest bookstore-cafe hybrids ever. Step aside, Barnes & Noble and Starbucks.
15. Wooden Stick Starbucks
Starbucks can be pretty weird too, though, so let’s give them some credit. In Fukuoka, Japan, there’s a Starbucks that uses 2,000 wooden sticks as decor.
16. The Pop Culture Coffee Shop
The Wormhole Coffee Shop in Chicago is all about using classic films as thematic decor. Back to the Future and Star Wars are just a couple of the movies they’ve used for a wicked cool ambiance.
17. Cardboard café
If you’re ever at a loss about what to do with all the boxes you end up accidentally hoarding because you solely shop online (this is me. I hoard all the boxes.), just build a cafe! That’s what B3 Designers did in London.
18. Pay it Forward Coffee Shop
At Pay it Forward in South Carolina, everyone pays for everyone else’s drinks. This started when a woman came in with a hundred dollar bill to pay for her coffee, and ended up leaving the change with the owner, telling him that he can use that money to pay for other customers’ drinks. Such a heartwarming concept!
19. Busboys and Poets
Busboys and Poets, a coffee shop named after Langston Hughes, is a pretty awesome hangout. It’s a bookstore as well (obviously), and encourages writers to meet up and well. . .write.
20. The Brooklyn Strategist
This Brooklyn coffee shop encourages a little bit of friendly competition by stocking up on old school board games. Best of all, you have 350 games to choose from. And if that’s not enough, you can totally bring your own.
21. Surfing Cafe
In Soho, NYC, you can stop by Saturdays Surf NYC, a West Coast inspired cafe that also sells surf wax and beach attire. Because I guess you would need those things in New York.
22. Pop up coffee shop
The Nescafe Nomadic coffee shop is basically like a food truck, but distinctly for coffee. Traveling wherever it is needed most (and let’s be real, who doesn’t need coffee?) this coffee shop is basically a shed. With coffee in it.
23. Chalkboard café
The Swedish Kaffe provides its customers with a chalkboard interior, because how satisfying is it to color with chalk? (answer: incredibly satisfying.)
24. Starbucks concept store
“The Bank” is a coffee shop owned by Starbucks that is constructed with sustainable materials as well as the craftsmanship of 35 designers in Amsterdam. That’ll do Starbucks. That’ll do.
25. Hidden coffee shop
Speaking of Starbucks, there has been a Starbucks revolution in Hong Kong China, which is good for Starbucks, but bad for all the smaller, family-owned shops. To perhaps create a novelty experience, these coffee shops “hide” by relocating to higher levels in buildings downtown.
26. Mystery Meal café
When you visit Ogori Cafe in Japan, be prepared to not get what you ordered. On purpose. In this cafe, what YOU order goes to the customer who orders after you. So I guess pray that the person in front of you has good taste.
27. Optical illusion café
The Logomo Cafe, designed by Tobias Rehberger, is more like a work of art than a coffee shop, but apparently the coffee ain’t too bad, either.
28. The Super Pink cafe
Cafe Foam, which is located in Stockholm, Sweden, is known for its bright interior. If the coffee doesn’t wake you up, the walls sure will.
29. Crafty cafe
The Big Knit Cafe in Bangkok, Thailand, is really into crafts. Specifically, knitting. Along with your coffee, you are served spools of yarn.
30. Dog cafe
Did you think cats were the only furry rulers of the coffee kingdom? Dogs just wanna have fun, too, guys. And they can, at Doggy Java Cafe.
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