Drinks 2026 | Cover Story

12 Cups of Cozy

Rounding up regional coffeehouses serving more than just a great cup of joe.

A beloved coffeehouse can feel like a safe haven. Whether it’s your favorite corner shop or a place where the beans are so delicious it’s worth the trek across town, coffeehouses are about more than what’s served in the cup. While the drinks can bring people back through the doors again and again, it’s the service and the atmosphere that make someone want to pull up a chair and spend a few hours on their laptop or scroll the latest TikTok videos while the baristas create their rhythmic bangs and hisses in the background.

We visited a dozen coffeehouses across Northern Nevada and Lake Tahoe and sampled not only their beverages but the other intangibles that set them apart from your average chain.

MORE THAN COFFEE

Comma Coffee – Carson City
June Joplin is celebrating 25 years as owner of Comma Coffee, a Main Street staple in Carson City with a name that represents the need to take a pause every once in a while. The maximalist coffeehouse (and restaurant) is seen as a community gathering place — cheers without the beer. Joplin says she dreamed of opening a coffeehouse from a young age, and after 25 years of ownership, she’s still relishing its fruition.

The whimsical storefront serves Alpen Sierra coffee roasted in Minden, in large part because it is locally roasted and carries organic and Fair Trade USA certifications. Specifically, the brand helps women in third-world countries support themselves, a mission about which Joplin is passionate.

Right down to the coffee served in mismatched cups of varying sizes, the entire space conveys a Wonderland feeling, with walls decorated by relics of the past — both from pop culture and Joplin’s own life.

In winter, cozy cups of seasonal favorites feel like warm hugs. The white chocolate peppermint mocha is a favorite, with sweet notes and a slight minty zing. The Mary Jean praline is Joplin’s personal go-to, a nutty, vanilla-based latte with a swirl of caramel on top.

Noel’s Coffee & Apothecary – South Lake Tahoe
Noel’s opened just over two years ago in Stateline as a true speakeasy. With a team of owners, some of whom also are at the helm of Community Speakeasy at Heavenly Village (see “Small Spaces, Big Spirits”), Noel’s is a speakeasy-style craft cocktail bar that doubles as a coffeehouse by day. Most of the beans come from South Lake’s own Bare Roots Coffee and are locally roasted in town, but other beans are brought in, such as Costa Rican import Black Toucan, used as the base for Brazilian coffee drinks.

The vanilla cardamom latte is the perfect balance of spicy and sweet. The savory, warm spices balance the vanilla perfectly for a latte you can’t stop sipping, especially when escaping the chilly air outside.

If you’re looking for a boozy coffee beverage, the espresso martini here is an absolute must, giving you that jolt of caffeine with a dose of seven-times-distilled vodka. What makes the beverage so good? In addition to quality ingredients, Noel’s proprietor, Ryan McCarthy, says a dash of sea salt and a twist of orange make all the difference. The drink also includes Demerara syrup for a thick molasses flavor and fresh espresso combined with cold brew coffee liqueur to balance bitterness.

Noel’s Apothecary, named for founder Leonardo Loques’ grandfather, is open late and also features live music.

Walden’s Coffee House – Reno
When Anthony and Karen Barone purchased Walden’s Coffee House in 2012, the beloved business existed in only one location. However, in addition to bringing their son, chef Michael Barone, on board, the couple also expanded Walden’s footprint with a Wells Avenue shop in 2016 and an Arlington Avenue location in 2018.

In addition to serving delicious coffees made with beans from Drink Coffee Do Stuff, the Barone family is extremely proud of the business’ food offerings; the culinary program was created by Michael, a graduate of the California Culinary Academy and International Culinary Institute for Foreigners in Italy.

When it comes to what to order, the Barones offer their popular pumpkin-based drinks year-round, utilizing a specialty pumpkin sauce for the rich flavor. The pumpkin chai builds on their already popular chai beverage with a dash of cinnamon to achieve that cozy fall feeling, no matter the time of year.

COFFEE WITH A TWIST

Stone Cabin Coffee – Fallon
The historic log cabin setting at Stone Cabin Coffee makes it a standout, especially in a small town like Fallon. Taylor deBraga, the current owner, purchased the business from its previous owner in 2020 after helping him run it for three years. Leaving her nursing career behind, deBraga, a mom of three, found family in a faraway place after relocating from Denver to be near her husband’s relatives in his hometown. “We have definitely built it up, and it’s become kind of a little gem in the community,” she says.

The place, which has plenty of regulars, was built out of a renovated shack home but now is a warm, inviting cabin with seasonal décor and game heads on the walls.

DeBraga only serves Alpen Sierra coffee because it is organic, low-mold, and, in her opinion, offers a better taste.

“Serving a high-quality coffee … is a very huge deal that sets us apart,” she says.

The delicious coffee can be tasted in each of the cabin-themed menu items, including the black bear, a peanut butter and chocolate latte served blended, even in winter, that remains a favorite among many of the servicemen who visit from the TOPGUN naval air base. The dirty chai is another year-round favorite made from powder, not liquids.

Coffee on Main – Minden
Lauren Olivares grew up at Coffee on Main, a Minden business with both local and international followings. Not only was it a place she frequented as a high school athlete, but she also worked there as a young mother looking for a flexible schedule. When the owners of the business, the Halls family, decided to retire in 2015, she called her parents, and together the trio purchased it.

The business dates back to 2002, when its founders, Lynda and Mike Mellows, built the building from the ground up. The Olivareses are the third family to own it.

Today, the shop’s story comes full circle as Lauren’s 15-year-old daughter works the drive-up and walk-up windows at the bright-red cottage-style Main Street corner business.

Lauren and her parents had no intention of changing much about the business.

“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” says Lauren’s mother, Adele Hoppe.

However, they have expanded the menu to include additional syrup flavors, drawn from frequent customer requests. In February, a red-velvet blended coffee will appear on the menu. It’s one of several popular blended beverages, with perhaps the most popular year-round offering being the peanut butter blast, made with real peanut butter. The family-owned coffee shop also serves pumpkin specialties year-round and a lineup of sweet lattes. The shop also uses Alpen Sierra beans; the roastery is located just down the road.

Rising for People Coffee – Reno
The name says it all. Owner Skyler Jones created this company with the goal of championing small, family-owned coffee farms that share her passion for quality, equity, and sustainability. While choosing shade-grown coffees and avoiding synthetic fertilizers are good for both customers and the planet, the other part of the puzzle is her dedication to providing living wages and focusing on gender equality.

While these impacts drive her, Jones also enjoys developing an artistic and highly creative drink list. Each beverage — some of which even come in bright purple and green hues — are visually striking: Think bright-pink rose petals atop thick foam and caramel drizzles artistically applied to empty cups before coffee is poured inside.

While any drink is a masterpiece, Jones is known for her coffee flights, which change seasonally. In January, she’ll feature a Twilight flight, featuring four delicious coffees with names inspired by the book and film series, such as Team Jacob and Loca Bella. The strawberry French toast latte — the Team Edward — is a dream in a glass. You also can pair these drinks with a collection of four mini loafs, made in house and gluten free.

Rising for People, which moved to 121 Vesta St. in Reno last year, also features a wall of coffee samples so you can try sips of several high-quality single-origin and blend coffees from around the world.

Pangolin Café – Reno
Brothers-in-law Travis Sandefur and Joel Stewart opened Pangolin Café in Midtown largely based on Sandefur’s international travels. The name itself was inspired by the pangolin, a gentle creature with a reputation for being trafficked, which he learned about in Zambia while working alongside his wife, Lauren. Later, he discovered the Turkish delight and spent years perfecting the artistry behind the dessert under a master confectioner in Turkey.

“Every sweet served and every cup poured carries a piece of that journey and a reminder of how curiosity and compassion can connect the world in unexpected ways,” says Marliena Landeros, Pangolin’s manager.

Every coffee served at Pangolin comes with a handcrafted Turkish delight made in house. And while the focus is largely on the drinks, a full complement of pastries is available as well, combining the brothers’ passions.

The coffee is made from beans roasted by Carl Staub’s Reno-based food technology business, Agtron. Largely chosen for his art-meets-science approach to brewing coffee, Agtron’s beans are the foundation for Pangolin’s creative lineup, including a Cubano breve and corn bread latte, the former of which is a Pangolin staple, a balance of cinnamon, raw sugar, and agave.

A newer favorite is the strawberry matcha, a seasonal beverage that didn’t take long to earn a permanent spot on the menu. It represents a new craft for Pangolin and its owners as the first beverage to incorporate house-made syrup.

“Made with real strawberries, this drink harmonizes the bright sweetness of fruit with the earthy, calming notes of matcha,” Landeros explains.

RIVETING ROASTERS

Drink Coffee Do Stuff – Truckee, Reno, Lake Tahoe
Husband-and-wife team Nick and Laura Visconti opened Drink Coffee Do Stuff out of their love for both coffee and an adventurous lifestyle. Nick, a former pro snowboarder, hopes his coffee is the start to an epic day, one that can find you seizing every moment, whether on or off the slopes.

The business also includes a roastery, and although it now has four coffeehouse locations around the Sierra, including the newest location in the Midtown building that formerly housed Junkee, the majority of its sales are from wholesale and retail coffee beans; it sells 400 to 600 packages directly to consumers per day, and the beans can be found in 300 grocery stores from here to San Francisco.

“Because we roast at altitude, we’re able to caramelize the sugars that are found in the actual coffee beans,” Laura says, explaining that this explains the tag line “more sweet, less bitter” to describe its collection of lightly roasted coffees.

The sweet taste guests experience is due to the beans themselves and the roasting process, not added sugar. The get-up-and-go mentality is echoed in the Viscontis’ fun and evocative monikers for their coffee beans, such as Hell Yeah!, which echoes Nick’s edgy, not mellow, lifestyle.

Year-round, three specialty drinks stand out. The purple haze latte uses lavender buds to create floral flavor; the pines latte echoes the natural offerings of Tahoe with rosemary, thyme, and sage; and the brown sugar and spice latte balances sweet with spice using brown sugar, cardamom, clove, and cinnamon simple syrup.

Coffeebar – Truckee, Reno, Bay Area
For 15 years, Greg Buchheister has owned and operated Coffeebar. What started as a back-alley coffeehouse on Jibboom Street in Truckee, inspired by personal experiences in Italy, has morphed into a larger enterprise with 10 locations across California and Nevada. The roastery, opened in 2018, is on Haskell Street in Reno.

Buchheister took his dedication to creating the café atmosphere he experienced in Italy so seriously that he even began selling gelato at its Mount Rose Street location.

Goods aside, Buchheister takes an ethical approach to the coffee business, focusing on directly sourcing coffee beans whenever possible — cutting out the middleman and purchasing from farmers in countries such as Guatemala and Ethiopia, which keeps more money in farmers’ pockets and supports a better quality of life overseas.

Coffees from Coffeebar focus on the seasons. Much like with other produce, different locations at different times of year produce different coffee beans. By learning how these climates affect taste, the Coffeebar staff members can produce creative specialty flavors from places such as Ethiopia, Guatemala, Thailand, and Nicaragua. (Read more about Coffeebar’s roastery in this issue.)

If you’re stopping in, try a customer favorite, the banana bread latte. Buchheister calls it “cozy, sweet nostalgia in a cup.” The drink is made from house banana bread syrup with a real banana purée, brown sugar, and vanilla before it’s paired with espresso and finished with a sprinkle of cinnamon.

“It’s like a fresh slice of banana bread, made to sip,” he says.

Old World Coffee Roasters – Reno & Carson City
As a roaster, Chris Garrison takes an educated approach to the art of brewing. The taste and flavor come largely from the coffee beans in their original state, relying on the terroir, location, varietal, and elevation. Instead of using additives or manipulating the coffee to take on specific characteristics, the roasters at Old World are focused on displaying coffee in its most natural state with just a few stylistic touches.

The menu at Old World uses lighter roasts, mostly to ensure the integrity of the original product, as dark roasts require longer roasting times, much like red wine requires more time with skins to achieve that dark color and bold flavor.

While its drip coffees hailing from Guatemala, Ethiopia, and other well-known coffee-producing countries showcase many nuanced flavors, Old World also offers a menu of specialty drinks that use many of the principles popular in craft cocktails. For example, the warming mocha drogata is perfect for winter — the chocolate-based beverage includes cayenne, cinnamon, and allspice, not unlike a Mexican hot chocolate. It warms you right down to your toes. The vanilla lavender is a milder coffee, using house-made vanilla and lavender syrups to achieve a sweet, earthy flavor profile.

By the bag, the Firefly is the company’s staple blend since opening in 2015, with a full-bodied, sweet, and chocolaty profile that feels both rich and decadent. It’s, of course, one of many with creative flavor combinations, including a tropical blend from Columbia that gives off aromas of pineapple and piña colada and a washed Kenya product with flavors of honey, cognac, and blueberry.

If coffee is the business’ No. 1 priority, hospitality is a close second.

“We really want to give someone an experience that … they’ll never forget and probably never have anywhere else,” Garrison says.

Hub Coffee Roasters, Reno
Since 2009, Mark Trujillo has served coffee in Reno under the name Hub. What started as a coffee-and-bicycle shop has progressed as Trujillo’s passion has grown. Sourcing beans from his three farms in Columbia — an empire built from constant reinvestment — as well as other coffee farms around the world — including Peru, Guatemala, Ethiopia, and Mexico — he takes a hands-on approach to roasting, providing the community with beans from farms he has visited himself. (Read more about Hub’s roasting capabilities in this issue.)

His coffee-first approach means the Hub menu features many single-origin and blend coffees that can be drunk without cream or sugar. Letting the natural characteristics of the beans shine through is a primary goal from Trujillo and his team, although the company’s menu of seasonal specialty drinks doesn’t exactly fall flat, with richly flavored, creamy lattes and cappuccinos.

Trujillo also recently introduced Reno to cofermented coffees, an overseas practice in which he’s been involved for years. Taking high-elevation arabica coffees and fermenting them alongside other ingredients such as mangoes, spring flowers, or coconut turns out flavorful roasts from coffees that may not otherwise be as pleasant on their own, providing a sustainable way to prevent waste. The final products are for sale (and sell out quickly) at select Hub locations.

Lighthouse Coffee – Sparks, Reno
Lighthouse Coffee dates back to 1999. While the shop, which originally opened on Pyramid Way, eventually closed so owners Todd and Melanie Prinz could focus on raising their three children, Hannah, Joel, and Caleb, it came back in 2011 with a renewed sense of purpose.

To the Prinz family, community is a driving force. Not only is Lighthouse Coffee embedded within the neighborhoods surrounding its three locations (on Los Altos Parkway, at the Sparks Marina, and in Reno Town Mall), it also supports communities far away by prioritizing civic duty right alongside coffee quality. In practice, this means supporting mostly women-owned farms and working with farms directly whenever possible to keep funds in communities in Kenya, Peru, and Guatemala. Locally, the family is constantly involved in fundraising efforts and veteran services, and it has been recognized with awards for ongoing stewardship.

“Our main goal as a company, from the beginning, has been to cultivate community,” Todd says.

If you stop in for a pick-me-up, the caramilla is a top pick. Served hot or iced, it mixes sweet homemade vanilla and caramel syrups. The iced presentation is especially picture-worthy with its swirl of caramel sauce before it’s poured over ice in a Mason jar. Another favorite is the nitro cold brew, a drink Hannah and Todd agree is experiencing a resurgence (read “Bold (and Cold) Brew” in this issue). Coffee not your thing? Try the matcha — a current beverage craze that’s popular at Lighthouse.

Of course, the Reno-Tahoe area is full to bursting with wonderful coffeehouses of all sorts, but space (and risk of overcaffeination) prevents us from including them all. Be sure to share your favorites with us on our social media pages!

RESOURCES

Coffee on Main Drinkcoffeeonmain.com
Coffeebar Coffeebar.square.site
Comma Coffee Commacoffeecafe.com
Drink Coffee Do Stuff Drinkcoffeedostuff.com
Hub Coffee Roasters Hubcoffeeroasters.com
Lighthouse Coffee Lighthousecoffeeshop.com
Noel’s Coffee & Apothecary Sltrestaurants.wixsite.com/my-site
Old World Coffee Roasters Oldworldcoffeeroasters.com
Pangolin Café Pangolincafe.com
Rising for People Coffee Co. Risingforpeoplecoffeeco.com
Stone Cabin Coffee Find Stone Cabin Coffeehouse on Facebook
Walden’s Coffee House Waldenscoffeehouse.com