The Grind
8 articles
The Grind: All Six Entries, Ranked and Defended
Six coffee shops in. RoosRoast holds. The middle is the argument.
The Grind has evaluated all six Ann Arbor coffee shops in its first round. Here are the final rankings, with the reasoning behind every placement and the live arguments the series hasn't fully settled.
The Grind: Argus Farm Stop
Entry 6. Good coffee inside a food market. The ranking has to decide whether that context is a feature or an excuse.
The sixth entry in The Grind visits Argus Farm Stop at 325 W Liberty St, where the coffee is sourced from Michigan roasters and served at a counter inside a local food market. The cup is good. The question is what that means in a coffee ranking.
The Grind: Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea
Entry 5. Thirty-plus years in Ann Arbor, a tea list that runs to over 100 varieties, and the question of whether scale is a credential or a liability.
The fifth entry in The Grind visits Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea, the local chain that Eva and James Amburgey founded in Ann Arbor in 1993. The tea program is the differentiator. The ranking is the argument.
The Grind: Vertex Coffee Roasters
Entry 4. A queer-owned roaster at the edge of campus with a coffee flight program that has no equivalent in Ann Arbor.
The fourth entry in The Grind visits Vertex Coffee Roasters at 1335 S University Ave, where Kara and Mackenzie Soto have built a coffee program around flights, flash-chilled coffee, and a roastery in Milan that supplies everything in the cup.
The Grind: Comet Coffee
Entry 3. In Nickels Arcade, a counter, three roasters on rotation, and the best cortado in Ann Arbor.
The third entry in The Grind visits Comet Coffee at 16 Nickels Arcade, where Jim Saborio has spent sixteen years proving that a short menu and a small room are an advantage, not a concession.
The Grind: Espy Cafe
Entry 2. On-source roasting, handmade ceramics, and an espresso pulled on a $6,000 machine. The newcomer makes its case.
The second entry in The Grind visits Espy Cafe at 404 W Huron St, where the roasting program, the room, and the no-tip ownership model all have something to prove. They mostly do.
The Grind: RoosRoast
Entry 1. Twenty years of roasting in Ann Arbor, and the Lobster Butter Love is still the one.
The first entry in The Grind visits RoosRoast at 1155 Rosewood St, where the Lobster Butter Love espresso sets the benchmark and the room earns every return visit.
The Grind: Best Coffee in Ann Arbor
A running series evaluating Ann Arbor's coffee shops one at a time. One drink, one room, one honest read.
The Grind is a new Plate & Press series: one coffee shop, one drink, one honest evaluation. Starting with RoosRoast on Rosewood, working through every serious coffee program in Ann Arbor worth arguing about.