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New parents — and even us Nightingales — love us some coffee for long nights with newborns. In the Boston area, though, what’s the best?
Obviously this is a huge matter of personal opinion and everyone is going to have their “thing” here. Think of this as outlining options that you can buy on the go or in bulk when you know a week is going to be particularly brutal between responsibilities and lack of sleep.
The Yelp Data: According to Yelp data from January-April 2017, the best coffee is Curio in East Cambridge. Side note for a personal visit there: they also now make some kick-ass waffles. Big Bear Cafe and Espresso Bar, in Dedham, was No. 2 according to the Yelp data and Farmer Horse Coffee was No. 3. That’s in South End.
What does Thrillist say? They’ve ranked dozens of Boston-area coffee shops too, including Loyal Nine (Cambridge), Bee’s Knees Supply Company (Allston), Gracenote (South End), and Juliet (Somerville).
What about Eater? In May of this year, Eater ranked 32 top Boston coffee shops. Let me show you a map of where the 32 are located:
You can find out which one is which on the link above, but that’s a decent geographic spread from Boston College up through Cambridge and out semi-close to the airport.
The 2014 Daily Meal winners: In 2014, The Daily Meal made a list of the 50 best coffee shops in America. Two Boston spots, Pavement and Render, made that list at No. 19/43 respectively. Three years ago, yes, but still nice praise.
Boston Magazine: Their 2017 best coffee winner was Gracenote, and in previous years it’s been Dwelltime, Render, and 1369.
Let’s branch out of the metro: Massachusetts overall has a variety of very strong — and eclectic — coffee shops, including Nirvana Coffee Shop (Barnstable) and Lenox Coffee in Lenox. If you want to go way west, Northampton has a strong coffee culture (just opened Iconica and Ritual Coffee Roasters) and Turner’s Falls has 2nd Street Baking Co., which is awesome.
How about Brookline? The Nightingales’ service area is pretty large. Eventually we’re going to incorporate town guides on the site, but until that happens, we won’t do “best coffee” in every town/city we cover. That said, we have gotten more calls in Brookline recently. If you’re over there, try 4A Coffee.
Another Somerville pick: Hard to not love Diesel Cafe.
I got this far without mentioning Dunkin: We are Massachusetts, after all.
Want to do your own Boston coffee crawl? Here is one idea, with north and south routes.
For real, though: sleep is massively important to new parents. Unfortunately, it’s not always the norm. In that case, do one of two things (or both): grab coffee from one of the places above, and call us to help with your kids.
