Southeast USA Coffee Tour
We spent a few weeks driving all around the southeast corner of the USA after a quick drive across the midwest and as far south as St. Augustine, FL (which we really didn’t get to see since it was peak tourist Christmas lighting). Our favorite part of (loosely) planning our road trips is getting recommendations from our followers on Instagram! We wish we could visit every recommended shop & roaster, but that would literally take us months to visit each one so we paired down to the shops that were near our route, checking out their social media for clues about their quality. Here’s our favorites and must visits for your next trip!
Check out our other blogs from our coffee tours in the Southwest and Central USA.
NO. 1
Crema Coffee Roasters - Nashville, Tennessee
We stopped at their downtown location. First impressions, this low-waste roaster & coffee shop was very impressive. This had to be the first carbon neutral roaster, zero waste coffee shop we’ve seen on the road. We also just hear that Food & Wine just named them the best roaster in TN! Seth got their cappuccino while I (Claire) ventured into one of their special latte concoctions. We highly recommend a stop there. There are free parking spaces if you’re just running in fast, but you can also pay to park and stay a while. The patio is an ideal place to hang out or even take a class with them.
NO. 2
Honest Coffee - Franklin, Tennessee
We fell in love with this shop and the old warehouse it was in with unique shops and food. It was a hopping place though, we couldn’t even find a spot to sit inside the coffee shop, but we’re glad it pushed us to walk around the warehouse & find some of the world’s best donuts. After you grab a good cuppa from Honest, venture into The Factory to find the most amazing donut of your entire life (seriously) at Five Daughters Bakery. Get one of their 100-layer donuts. Thank us later.
NO. 3
City & State - Memphis, Tennessee
We didn’t spend much time in Memphis, but we did seek out coffee on our way west one morning. We were so stoked to find City & State. It was specialty coffee with an adorable shop full of small makers and on trend gifts. I only had the chance to try their latte, but it was damn good. It’s a sweet little multi-roaster shop. We’d definitely recommend making a stop.
NO. 4
Farewell - Asheville, North Carolina
We stumbled upon Farewell when driving to brewery (there’s a lot of good beer in Asheville). Side note: We ended up at the Hi-Wire Brewing Biltmore Village which has a life-size pool table with soccer balls as the billiard balls. Huge hit with the toddlers while we drank a couple with an old friend from Colorado. Okay, back to Farwell - the shop is exactly what we’d love to do if we ever opened a brick & mortar. It’s small, but not too small. Coffee was served in the ultra-popular locally operated East Fork Pottery (we only own one and it’s our favorite mug). The atmosphere was so rad & welcoming. With a garage door opening to a seating outside & a revolving mural inside. You just have to go check it out for yourself if you’re ever in the area (and we hope you go). Asheville is a funky town that we could easily write an entire blog about.
NO. 5
East Pole Coffee Co. - Atlanta, Georgia
We actually drove through Atlanta on our way back to the Rockies in the afternoon, but we really needed the boost of caffeine for the long haul drive we were attempting that night. Thankfully, one of our followers recommended East Pole and while seeking it out, it definitely felt like it might be leading us to a random roasting warehouse so I was already kicking myself for asking Seth to take the detour. To my surprise, the area bloomed into a modern tech buildings. The baristas working at East Pole instantly welcomed us, asked questions about our van and clearly demonstrated that they were not just another roaster. The coffee they were slinging was high quality and we honestly stayed a lot longer than planned with the baristas practically giving us a flight of all their coffee just due to the conversation at hand. It was awesome and we highly recommend taking the detour off the busy Atlanta Interstate for East Pole.
NO. 5
Perc Coffee - Savannah, GA
We actually found Perc through Instagram hashtag #savannahcoffee. We actually do look at every #CITYcoffee when traveling as our own way of discovering excellent local coffee. There’s only been one instance where a shop had a WAY prettier instagram than they did inside their own building, but props to them for having a great social media presence. Anyway, Perc is one of those “HOLY CRAP” coffee shops of your dreams. We’ve only been to the one in Savannah, but I can just tell you now that you NEED to go. The countertops literally sparkle. The people do too, actually. Seth even dropped in for a latte art competition recently and took home 3rd (rightfully so). The competition & judges were top notch. Also, did we say that their coffee is excellent? Well, it is. It is very, very tasty coffee. We particularly love their Colombia Andrés Cardona - Red Sunset right now. Blows our socks OFF.
NO. 6
Setlan Coffee - Jacksonville, Florida
This was another “Oh my gosh, we want to do something like this if we ever do a permanent shop.” Setlan is currently in a sweet, crisp white shipping container next to a sweet development called the San Marco Train Station. There’s a PLANE on a stick in their little courtyard. Our 3 year old was stoked! Anyway, when we visited them they had Good Citizen Coffee out of Nashville (Antioch) on bar. We stayed and talked with the owner for a bit and he even pointed us in the direction the Riverside Art Market that just so happened to be going on at the time under the highway (which was incredible, by the way).