Crema Data · 2026
The State of Coffee
35,000+ specialty coffee shops. 1,300+ cities. 14 million Google reviews. Here's what American coffee actually looks like.
Coverage
35,000+ Shops. One Map.
Every bubble is a city in Crema's database. Size reflects shop count. Color reflects average rating — the darkest dots are the highest-quality coffee cities. Hover any dot to see the city. The coasts are loud. The middle of the country is quietly doing fine.
Volume
The Regulars
New York leads with 835 shops and Brooklyn follows close behind at 682 — together they account for more specialty coffee than any other city combination in the country. Portland, Seattle, and Denver still crack the top ten despite being a fraction of the size. Coffee density matters more than population.
Quality
The Single Origins
The cities with the highest average ratings are not the ones you'd put on a coffee map. Fort Smith, Arkansas. Kearney, Nebraska. Walla Walla, Washington. Smaller cities with fewer tourists and more regulars tend to push shops toward quality — there's nowhere to hide behind foot traffic.
Bar length scaled 4.70–4.80 to show relative differences
Density
The Daily Drinkers
Raw shop counts favor big cities — but divide by population and a different story emerges. Seattle leads America at 63 shops per 100,000 residents — a product of being a city built around coffee culture at every neighborhood level. Portland, Pittsburgh, Honolulu, and Anchorage follow close behind. New York, with over 8 million people and 835 shops, still sits near the bottom per capita. Volume is a big-city game. Density is something else entirely.
shops per 100,000 residents · 2020 census city proper
Ratings
The Even Extraction
Specialty coffee is not a bell curve. It's a ski slope pointing right. The vast majority of shops cluster between 4.4 and 4.8 stars — a 0.4-point range that contains over half of every shop in this database. Bad coffee shops don't survive long enough to make it into a database like this.
stars (Google avg) · shop count above each bar
The takeaway
A great local cup is closer than you think.
For every chain location in America, there's a local shop within striking distance. The problem was never availability. It was discoverability. You've been defaulting out of habit, not necessity. Crema puts all 34,000+ independent shops on a map so the better option is actually findable.
Find local coffee near you →Amenities
On the Menu
Nearly every specialty coffee shop serves an espresso drink. Beyond that, it gets interesting. Most are built for lingering, not grabbing. Fewer than 1 in 4 confirm wifi — not because they don't have it, but because nobody thinks to mention it anymore. Dog friendly is still a rarity. Pour over remains a badge of honor for a dedicated third.
States
The House Blend
South Dakota leads the nation in average rating with 4.68 — ahead of every coastal state and every city you'd expect. Kansas follows at 4.66. The South is quietly excellent: Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and North Carolina all cluster at 4.64. California, despite having 6,179 shops, ranks near the bottom at 4.51. Volume creates variance. More shops means more chances to disappoint.
About this data.All figures are pulled from Crema's database of active, non-hidden specialty coffee shops as of May 2026. Shop counts, ratings, and review totals are sourced from the Google Places API. Tags are a combination of AI inference and Google attribute data. Chain comparison figures (Starbucks, Dunkin) are based on publicly reported US location counts as of 2025. Per capita figures use 2020 US Census city proper populations. Data refreshes with each deploy.