Map: Brewing Change Among Detroit’s Coffee Shops

In the last few years, Detroit lost some staples of the city’s coffee and gathering spaces, including:

  • Avalon Bakery (original location)
  • Astro Coffee
  • Bikes and Coffee
  • Great Lakes Coffee
  • Starbucks (Midtown)
  • 3 Tim Hortons locations

Despite all the closings (n=21), the city is only down by one coffee shop overall from 84 to 83 coffee shops. Since 2021 there have been 20 new coffee shops or pop-ups launched. The focus for coffee remains Downtown and Midtown, but the neighborhoods remain under-served by third places (not home, not work).

Other staples got new life as renewed coffee shops:

  • Detroit Rosa (former A Public Square, former Towne Hall Caffe)
  • SPKRBOX (former Urban Bean Co.)
  • Red Hook – Midtown (former Great Lakes Coffee)

Still more moved to grow in new locations:

  • Anthology relocated to Eastern Market
  • Cairo Coffee moved into Spotlite Detroit space
  • Avalon moved in to share space with Jolly Pumpkin

Gathering spaces in Detroit are a hot commodity and not easy to come by, so the loss of just one is usually a substantial hit to the community. A handful of new baristas are trying their hand at pop-up coffee and we can’t wait until they have some physical space:

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