We Made the Top 15 Coffee Shops in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean
There’s a moment I keep replaying in my mind: sitting in a ballroom in San Diego, surrounded by coffee people from across the continent, waiting to hear our name called.
It happened. The Colombian landed at #15 on The World’s 100 Best Coffee Shops list for North America, Central America, and the Caribbean.
Out of 4,600+ shops. Evaluated by 200+ industry professionals. I’m still a little emotional about it, honestly.
I flew to San Diego specifically to be at World of Coffee for the announcement, because some moments deserve to be heard in person, not read about later on a screen. This was one of them. Sitting in that room, surrounded by people who love this industry as much as we do, hearing our name called, I felt so deeply proud of everyone who has poured themselves into building what The Colombian is.
What the Ranking Actually Measures
This isn’t a popularity contest. The World’s 100 Best Coffee Shops is an international program developed by NEODRINKS and integrated into the official Specialty Coffee Association calendar, one of the most important events in the global coffee industry. The process combined assessment from over 200 professional judges with public voting that surpassed 200,000 votes. According to the program’s creator, César Ramírez, the goal is to “highlight highly developed regions such as the United States, alongside others such as Central America and the Caribbean, where the most innovative and quality-driven concepts” are shaping the future of specialty coffee.
The criteria reflect what it actually takes to build something worth visiting: coffee quality, barista expertise, customer service, innovation, ambience, sustainability, food and pastry, consistency, and community impact.
That list isn’t just a checklist to us. It’s a description of what we work on every single day, and what we genuinely care about. From the beginning, our purpose has been simple: helping people experience Colombian coffee. Everything we do flows from that. We are the bridge to specialty Colombian coffee, and we take that role seriously, because the coffee, and the people behind it, deserve to be known.
Our coffee starts long before it reaches the bar. We source directly from producers in Colombia, building real relationships at origin, because Colombian coffee from our family to yours isn’t just a saying. It’s how we actually operate. What ends up in your cup has a name attached to it: a farmer, a region, a process, a story and a relationship built directly by our co-founder and coffee buyer, Santiago.
Quality at that level requires consistency across every touchpoint: how we source, how we roast, how we dial in, how our baristas approach their craft shift after shift. Our team brings real expertise and genuine love for what they do, and it shows up in the cup every single time. And beyond the coffee itself, the space, the food, our sustainability practices, our relationship with the community around us: these aren’t afterthoughts. They are woven into everything we do.
Our purpose is helping people experience Colombian specialty coffee through simple, extraordinary hospitality. We make magic through hospitality, and that means every guest who walks through our doors should feel seen and valued, every single time. That standard does not waver depending on how busy we are or what day of the week it is. It is just who we are.
What It Means to Be Here
The top of the list is anchored by Onyx Coffee Lab (USA) at #1, Alquimia Coffee (El Salvador) at #2, and Arcane Estate Coffee (USA) at #3, a podium that reflects both the maturity of the U.S. market and the growing strategic importance of producing countries in shaping high-quality coffee.
Fourteen Canadian shops made the list, and we are so proud to be counted among them alongside names like Nemesis Coffee, Seven Mystery, Monogram Coffee, Café Éclair, and so many others doing beautiful work.
We did not build this alone. Not even close.
What Comes Next
The World’s 100 Best Coffee Shops will continue its expansion with the Top 100 in Europe, unveiled at World of Coffee Brussels in June 2026, culminating in the selection of the 100 best coffee shops in the world at CoffeeFest Madrid in 2027. We will be watching that conversation closely and cheering on this community the whole way.
In the meantime, there is so much more we want to do and so much more we want to build. We will continue sourcing directly. We will continue building relationships at origin. We will continue showing up for every guest like it matters, because it truly does.
To our team, our producers, and every single guest who has walked through our doors: thank you. This one is for all of you.
Come visit us. We will make it worth the trip.
The full World’s 100 Best Coffee Shops list for North America, Central America, and the Caribbean can be found at theworlds100bestcoffeeshops.
-Kristin Panylyk de Lopez, Co-founder
