Blue Bottle

The brainchild of freelance musician and coffee obsessive James Freeman, Blue Bottle began in Oakland in the early 2000s. Today, the iconic blue logo is symbolic of a coffee empire, with outposts in New York, LA, Boston, Miami, Washington D.C., and Japan. Freeman named his burgeoning coffee company after Central Europe’s first-ever coffee house, The Blue Bottle, opened in Vienna in the 1600s. Blue Bottle’s stark, white-and-natural-light aesthetic has since been mimicked by dozens of haughty copycat cafes. But the look is perhaps best captured by its FiDi location, marked by white marble tables, floor-to-ceiling windows, and soaring ceilings. But the emphasis here has always been on the coffee: responsibly sourced and served less than 48 hours from the Loring roaster.