8 Coffee Shops With Standout Lunch Menus
Where to go when you want to eat something more satisfying than a semi-stale croissant.
Level-up your coffee shop lunch with pomelo salad at Càphê Roasters / Photograph by Ted Nghiem
If the coffee shop is your new office, pick one with a standout lunch. Here are eight destinations with solid sustenance (and reliable wi-fi).
Homeroom
Gladwyne
Take a serious chef (owner Henry Morgan worked for CookNSolo), mix with a hospitable staff, add a well-designed space, and put all that in a town hungry for quality eating options. Result? This instant ’burb hot spot. The often-changing dishes have next-level details: There’s sesame aioli on a steak sandwich and mint on the avocado toast. 358 Righters Mill Road.
Volo
Manayunk
Don’t let the bustling downstairs fool you — upstairs has plenty of seating and is as quiet as a college library. You can post up there all day and dig into a smoked salmon panini or salad (a.k.a. a lox sandwich without the bagel) and fluffy eggs on thick-cut toast. 4360 Main Street.
ReAnimator
Kensington
The Kenzo outpost of this growing empire has all that’s needed for a successful workday: strong coffee (roasted on-site), plenty of seating, natural light, wi-fi, and a bakery that keeps the counter display filled with veggie focaccia, sourdough bagel sandwiches and biscuits. And if that Zoom breakout room gets really tense, there’s a bottle shop, too. 310 West Master Street.
Green Engine
Haverford
The avocado toast here is a full meal. Bread is piled high with mashed avo, pepitas, a soft-boiled egg and tangy greens — it’s a pyramid of tasty that requires a knife and fork. The only downside is that everyone in town (rightly) loves this place, so go early to stake out your spot. 16 Haverford Station Road.
Càphê Roasters
Kensington
The Vietnamese coffee, the pretty space and ample seating are reasons enough to make this year-old shop your new office, but it’s the food that will inspire you to hang around for breakfast and lunch. This is the place to get banh mì and kimchi fried rice, but don’t miss the egg sandwich with XO aioli, the loaded fries, and, for all your hard work, the condensed-milk soft-serve. 3400 J Street.
Càphê Roasters / Photograph by Ted Nghiem
Red Hook Coffee and Tea
Queen Village
First, you’ll be shocked by the number of dishes the shoebox-size kitchen produces. Then you’ll be surprised by the quality of it all. And if you’re a vegetarian? You’ll be especially happy. There’s an egg breakfast sandwich with veggie sausage and peach preserves, a vegan BLTA, and fruit with goat cheese and honey on toast. (Hot tip: The potato salad is worth sizing up.) 765 South 4th Street.
The Landing Kitchen
Bala Cynwyd
If you’ve only been upstairs at Nick Elmi and Fia Berisha’s suburban foray, you’re experiencing a mere half of what makes this property so special. It’s easy to hang all day at the downstairs riverside cafe thanks to plenty of indoor/outdoor seating. The fact that you can have breakfast (hello, house-made granola) and then roll right into spicy noodles and grain bowls for lunch is a bonus. 617 Righters Ferry Road.
Pretty Bird Coffee
Yardley
It’s all about the biscuit at this Bucks mainstay: The staff turns the flaky, nutty rounds into a small but mighty selection of sandwiches, like a classic egg-and-cheese and a lunch-y version with a burger patty. Prefer something lighter? The hot honey toast — a mix of ricotta and mascarpone topped with cracked black pepper and honey — is the perfect blend of salty and sweet. 7 South Main Street.
Published as “Hunker Down” in the December 2022 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
