Frequently asked questions

Specialty coffee refers to coffee that scores highly on a 100-point scale, emphasizing high-quality beans, specific origins, and careful processing and roasting. It's about appreciating the distinct flavors and characteristics of the coffee itself. At Local Specialty Coffee, we focus on local businesses – the independent coffee shops and roasteries in your community that are dedicated to sourcing, roasting, and brewing these exceptional coffees with skill and passion. We aim to be your guide to finding these neighbourhood gems.

Our Web Application is built through a combination of dedicated research by our team, suggestions from our user community, and submissions directly from coffee businesses. We actively seek out establishments that align with our focus on specialty coffee quality and add information about that we know specialty coffee lovers appreciate.

We strive to keep the information in our directory as accurate and current as possible. We perform periodic checks and rely on updates from businesses and our user community. However, details like opening hours or specific offerings can change quickly. For opening hours, we additionally recommend checking the business's Google Maps listing (links are usually provided in our listings).

We love getting recommendations from fellow coffee enthusiasts! If you know of a great local specialty coffee shop or roastery that isn't in our directory yet, please let us know by our submission form. We'll review your suggestion based on our listing criteria.

We add Cities worldwide. Currently, Local Specialty Coffee focuses on large cities and metropols with known and unique Specialty Coffee Scene. We are actively working on expanding our coverage every month. You can browse listings by location using our search and filter tools. Our ultimate goal is to eventually cover ALL specialty coffee spots worldwide. Help us get there!

We welcome submissions from businesses that meet our specialty coffee criteria! To submit your business for consideration, please submit your details in this submission form. We typically require information such as your business name, address, website, a brief description focusing on your coffee program, and potentially some photos. Listing is currently free, but we will offer Premium Listing Options and Collaborations soon!

To be featured, businesses need to demonstrate a clear commitment to specialty coffee quality. Key indicators we look for include:Sourcing primarily high-quality, traceable coffee beans.
- Offering precise brewing methods like pour-over, Aeropress, or quality espresso.
- Having staff who demonstrate solid coffee knowledge and skill.
- Minimizing the reliance on artificial syrups or flavorings in core coffee drinks, letting the coffee's natural profile shine.
- For Roasters: Roasting beans in-house with a distinct focus on quality and offering single-origin coffees.
Our aim is to list businesses where the coffee itself is the star, creating unique and authentic specialty coffee experiences for customers.

We do not offer yet opportunities for businesses to increase their visibility on our platform, but we are working on this. If you are interested in getting notified as soon as our advertising options and rates, are available please contact us team at via our Contact form.

We'd love to hear from you! For general questions, feedback, or inquiries not covered here, please submit via our Contact form.

Local Specialty Coffee is purely a passion project, funded personally by Nico Nuscheler out of a love for the specialty coffee scene. We're committed to keeping basic listings free for businesses. Currently, the site has no advertising or other income sources – our priority is providing a clean, valuable resource for the coffee community without distractions.
If you find the directory helpful and would like to support its upkeep (like hosting costs and development time), you're welcome to "buy me a coffee" as a small, optional donation.
You can find the support link here: https://buymeacoffee.com/localspecialtycoffee. This is entirely voluntary, and simply using and sharing the directory is fantastic support in itself!