LAGuide
LA Coffee Shops That Serve Great Food
It’s rare when you can find a good coffee shop with equally good food. But we tracked down the 14 best in LA.
Like everywhere else in America, the coffee situation in Los Angeles has never been better. In pretty much every corner of this city, you can get a fantastic cup of coffee from a place that doesn’t rhyme with FarShucks, and that’s exciting.
But what about those times you need a pick-me-up and a quick bite to go with it? Good luck. Most coffee shops don’t even pretend to dabble in food, and if they do, it’s usually in the form of some sad croissant that no amount of Taco Bell hot sauce in your glove compartment can bring back to life. But more and more special places serve both great coffee and delicious food - you just have to know where to look. Like right here, where we’ve rounded up the best coffee spots with food across Los Angeles.
The Spots
In Australia, a coffee shop with good food isn’t an outlier - it’s just every coffee shop. Little Ripper, an Australian cafe in Glassell Park, carries on this tradition with a short and simple menu that will make any homesick Aussie weep with happiness. There are a couple of jaffles (the Australian version of a grilled cheese, vegemite optional), some toasts, and pastries at the counter if you just want something quick. Non-Australians shouldn’t be intimidated either - the coffee is excellent, the food is made to order, and you’ll get to try a lamington for the first time and be forever changed.
Blue Bottle might not be quite as cool anymore (that’s what happens when you get bought by Nestle), and their in-house eating options are limited to brought-in pastries, but the Abbot Kinney location is on this list for a reason: the rotating food trucks out front. Two of our favorites are regulars here - The Rooster on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and Guerrilla Tacos on Sundays. Order your food, head inside and grab a New Orleans iced coffee while you wait, and then sit on the curb to enjoy some of the best breakfast around.
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You could easily spend all day at The Semi Tropic. Mornings, it’s a coffee shop filled with people at their laptops, and by the afternoon it turns into a wine bar, albeit one still filled with computers. The food does a similar switch - there’s a great avocado toast to go with your latte in the morning and deviled eggs and mussels to go with that pinot you’re having to celebrate the fact that you achieved absolutely nothing today.
Habitat
Located on Eagle Rock Blvd. in Glassell Park, Habitat is filled mostly with locals chatting with their neighbors or people writing pilot scripts all day on their laptops. But no matter what you’re here to do, you should definitely be taking advantage of the food menu. There’s an assortment of not-sad daily sandwiches and salads (get the cinnamon beet one), plus a full breakfast menu that goes until noon on weekdays.
Despite being dangerously close to the Venice Boardwalk, Great White is filled with neighborhood people running in for their morning caffeine fix or settling down for a full breakfast. The coffee is fantastic, as you’d expect in (another) place run by Australians, and the food checks all the morning meal boxes: avocado toast, a smoothie bowl, and a breakfast burrito we order every time.
Lamill has long been one of our favorite coffee shops in the city, but it’s important to know that this reservoir-adjacent hangover glory spot has shockingly good food too. Serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day (plus a 4-7pm Happy Hour), expect everything from eggs benedict to steak frites to a mac and cheese that remains very close to our (hungover) heart.
Located on the Wisteria Lane of coffee shops (Larchmont Blvd.), Go Get Em Tiger knows you can’t get by on decent coffee and some scones around here. Competition is fierce, and this trendy little coffee shop rises to the occasion. Grab a latte and a baked egg and chorizo skillet, and go find a stroller to push before somebody asks you what you’re doing here. The Los Feliz location has a different menu and more space, and is just as good.
Have you ever typed something into a computer? Maybe a joke you ripped from Reddit or a disjointed pilot outline your on-camera teacher told you to write? Then you’re probably at Coffee Commissary at this very moment. This modern coffee shop with all over the city is a struggling writer’s playground, but the Burbank location is the only one with a full breakfast and lunch menu. Because nothing will get your creative juices flowing like a fried chicken sandwich.
At its core, Cofax is a coffee shop. But they also happen to serve one of the best breakfast burritos in the entire city. Cofax is where you go on Sunday morning after you drank too much tequila at your friend’s going away party and you need coffee and burritos before you kill someone. There’s no better place to get them both than at this tiny Fairfax spot.
Caffe Etc.
This spot just off Cahuenga is one of the most criminally overlooked grab-and-go coffee options in the city, but it’s Caffe Etc.’s food that keeps us coming back. Their breakfast menu is served all day, there’s a rotating daily empanada flavor, and the service will get you in and out and on your way to your next commercial audition.
Café Dulcé
Deep in the heart of Little Tokyo’s fun and very touristy Japanese Village Plaza sits Caffe Dulce, a counter-serve coffee shop serving some of our favorite baked goods downtown. While you can’t go wrong with any of their housemade pastries, their Green Tea donut is worth the drive from wherever you are in the city. If you’re in the mood for something slightly more substantial, their baguette sandwich situation is not to be ignored.
Coffee Tomo
In the Japanese food dreamland that is Sawtelle Blvd., you wouldn’t think a tiny coffee shop would be able to stand out amongst the heavy competition. But Coffee Tomo most certainly does. And that’s because of their fancy drip coffee and their giant soft pretzel - baked in-house every morning and stuffed with sweet potato and cheese (and sometimes jalapeños).
Copa Vida has long been considered one of the better places to grab coffee in Northeast LA, but its breakfast, lunch, and “extended hours” menu are also solid. If your day involves Copa Vida, a croque madame is definitely in your future. With good wifi, plenty of plugs, and Cal Tech down the street, you and your laptop won’t be the only ones.
