Where to Drink Coffee in NYC: The Creme de la Crema in Brooklyn and Queens
When Sweetleaf opened in a tiny, wedge-shaped Long Island City storefront back in 2008, it was one of NYC's true sleeper cafes. Great Stumptown coffee served in a super charming, but inexplicable location—even to those of us who believed the Long-Island-City-Is-Coming gospel. Fast forward to 2013 and the Sweetleaf empire has expanded to three shops: two in Long Island City and one on Williamsburg's Northside, all serving excellent coffee to nerd-exacting standards. We like best the "original" location (actually it expanded and moved over a bit from the first shop) with its picture-window bakery and factory-salvaged communal table (which doubles as the laptop quarrantine zone), just over the brige on Jackson Ave. Watch for Stumptown and Ritual beans in heavy rotation, with a little bit of everything else on the side.
Sweetleaf LIC: 10-93 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City NY 11101 () 917-832-6726;