NYCGuide
The Best Coffee Shops For Getting Work Done
Is your roommate a pain? Did you forget to pay the folks at Spectrum? Do you work from your laptop? Sounds like you need a coffee shop with wifi.
Apartments in the city are increasingly cramped, wifi is increasingly terrible, and your roommates sit on the couch all day watching old episodes of The X-Files. That’s where coffee shops come in. But you can’t work at just any coffee shop. Your workspace needs wifi, a bathroom, and preferably some food. Because loitering for a few hours in a place with outlets and free internet requires adequate sustenance. Here are 16 of your best options around NYC.
THE SPOTS
The Well feels like an oasis in the middle of Union Square. Here, you can take a yoga class followed by a luxurious shower with lots of nice products and Dyson hair dryers before posting up with your laptop in a cafe flooded with natural light. You might think the food at a place that calls itself a "wellness café" would be boring and "healthy" in all the wrong ways, but we actually come here just to eat sometimes. Lots of people take Zoom meetings here, too, so you won’t feel weird about talking to your screen.
If you want to handle some emails in a space that looks like the inside of a salt cave, head to Daughter in Crown Heights. This coffee shop started out as a Kickstarter campaign but has now become a cafe with huge street-facing windows and a bunch of built-in banquettes that look like giant stones. In addition to its Stoneage-chic interior, Daughter also happens to be a mission-driven cafe in Crown Heights that donates to a rotating list of charities every month. So far, they’ve worked with organizations like Ancient Song Doula Services and The Water Project, but you should follow along on their Instagram for more updates. Swing by for a frittata and an iced coffee in the morning, or stick around and get some work done at a patio table outside.
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Prince Coffee House
There’s a very long list of enjoyable things to do on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. Getting work done isn’t on it. But with more than 50 coffee-adjacent drinks, bialy egg sandwiches, and 7am-11pm hours every day, Prince Coffee House makes working about as pleasant as possible. It’s also right at the entrance to one of Little Italy’s most concentrated strips of great shops and restaurants, so when you need a break, you’re not far from a bakery, cheese shop, or massive botanical garden.
This small coffee shop just one block south of Peaches Hot House in Bed-Stuy has an excellent backyard, crispy focaccia sandwiches, and free wifi that won’t cut out on you every 20 minutes. The only challenge you might face is finding a table since every up-and-coming model and amateur DJ within a two-mile radius is already treating this casual counter-service spot like an office. If you can manage to get one of the first come, first served tables here, celebrate with a handheld lunch involving prosciutto and burrata.
Buunni Coffee
Buunni is a coffee shop that specializes in small-batch coffee beans from Ethiopia (where the owners are from). They have locations in Washington Heights and Inwood, both of which have more than enough space where you can get some work done. But the Inwood location has been recently renovated, so if you’re looking for a calming space with long wood tables and lots of natural light, come here. You can also preorder a whole range of Ethiopian food for pick-up and local delivery every day. In case you’re looking for some great coffee beans to send to someone that isn’t in NYC, Buunni also ships nationwide.
Milk and Pull has some hanging plants and hardwood floors that you’ll wish you had in your own apartment. So go sit there and work while you eat a donut or a bagel sandwich. There’s a nice amount of space, along with a big communal table that you can use for a group hang. If you live in Ridgewood, this should be your go-to spot for laptop loitering.
Perk is really just a nice, plain coffee shop on the Upper East Side where you can grab a stool and sit for a while. It’s isn’t especially big or fancy, but they have Stumptown coffee, Dough donuts, and—most importantly—wifi and a bathroom. So if you’re looking for a coffee shop uptown, consider this one. You might have to sit at a communal table with a few other people, but there are worse things in life.
The bathroom here is nicer and cleaner than most of our apartments. Granted, you don’t know what our apartments look like, but trust us. It’s nice. And so is the staff. This place was opened by a couple of Australian designers, and it’s a great spot in Williamsburg to sit with your laptop while you maybe eat some avocado toast. There are also a few seats outside, for those few weeks between summer and fall when you actually want to be outside.
There’s just something about the coffee at the Park Slope outpost of Variety that makes it better than the coffee at the other locations. We don’t make the rules, it’s just that way. The cafe is big and sunny, with ample seating and fast wifi. It’s also close to Prospect Park, so you can take a walk if you need to clear your head in the middle of getting work done. The Locations in Greenpoint, Bushwick, Williamsburg, Chelsea, and the Upper East Side are just as good.
Odd Fox is such a pleasant place to hang out with your laptop that we actually suggest taking a “fake commute” here if you’re a remote worker who doesn’t live in Greenpoint. They brew Parlor beans, so the coffee is well above average, and there’s wifi as well as ample indoor and outdoor seating.
Have you ever wanted to answer emails in the middle of a rich person’s greenhouse? Hanging out at Remi43, which has two locations in Midtown, feels like that. It’s so lush and luxurious, your coworkers will probably ask where you are when you sign on for that quick daily meeting.
Blank Slate feels like it should be in Brooklyn or Tribeca, not a few blocks from Murray Hill. So if you find yourself in the neighborhood, make the most of it. Spend a few hours here, and maybe get a sandwich or some s’mores dip that’s exactly what it sounds like. And feel free to transition from coffee to rosé as the day goes on.
Devoción roasts their own beans, and they have an exceedingly nice coffee shop in Williamsburg with exposed brick, a skylight, and repurposed pipes. So stop by and grab a table by a chest on a rug near a leather sofa that would look nice in an office of your own.
Ground Central is where you go when you’re in Midtown and you have work to do. Although if you’re in the neighborhood, you could also just come here to hang out and drink something caffeinated. There’s a nice sitting area with couches in the back, and they offer free wifi.
This coffee shop has a parking limit in terms of how long you can hang out without buying more stuff. We actually think this is a good thing, because it means you can usually get a seat here. The space has a very chic living room feel, and you can choose between desk-type or couch-type seating. The coffee is pretty good, too.
If you’re a coffee snob who lives in Astoria, you should be working from Kinship. This sleek modern cafe has their own line of single origin beans, and they actually have a robot-type machine that makes pour overs, so you don’t have to worry about pesky human errors ruining your perfect cup. There’s also a bathroom, strong wifi, and tons of seating both inside and outside.
