Approved Coffee, Bakeries & Coffee-Serving Establishments

What every business on this list promised

Each business below confirmed, in writing, that all eight of these are true of how they serve coffee — the date beside each name is when they did. Every year we ask them to confirm it again. If one stops being true, the listing comes down.

  1. We serve specialty-grade 100% Arabica — 80 points or higher on the original cupping system.
  2. We buy from roasters who publish roast dates and source current-crop green coffee.
  3. Our espresso is made with coffee roasted within roughly 3–14 days, adjusted by taste.
  4. Our filter coffee is made with coffee roasted within roughly 3–30 days, adjusted by taste.
  5. We grind on demand. We do not brew from pre-ground coffee.
  6. Any retail bags we sell carry a visible roast date.
  7. We do not serve artificially flavoured coffee as part of our core offering.
  8. We train our staff to serve customers with care, and treat hospitality as part of the craft.

9 approved businesses. The full pledge, and the roaster one, is here.

Why this list exists

This list features independent cafés, coffee shops, bakeries, and convenience stores serving coffee that meets CBI's freshness and quality standards. Whether it's a full-service café or a corner shop pulling well-prepared espresso, these businesses have committed to craft, training, and customer experience.

The standard is Canadian. The list is open to the world. CBI Approval was written here, is governed here, and carries the name of a Canadian institute — but a coffee shop in Rowayton or Rome that meets it is as approved as one in Red Deer. We would like “meets the Canadian standard” to mean something to a coffee drinker anywhere, the way it already does for a few other coffee countries.

We don't accept payments or sponsorships for a place on this list, and we take nothing in commissions or referral fees. These are simply the rooms where we would happily drink the coffee.

This is a selective list. Businesses can be removed when found not to be upholding the standard. If you believe a business on this list no longer qualifies, contact us directly. We will never publicize rejections — all results are held in full confidence. Removal decisions are made by the Approved Business Committee, made up of coffee professional peers, by formal vote.

Interested in becoming CBI Approved? → Review the standards and submit your application here

Why most coffee lists don't tell you much

Ask who has the best coffee in a city and you will find a list. Ask how the list was made and the answer gets thin.

Nobody has been to every coffee shop in a city, let alone a country. So a list naming five or ten places across a whole city isn't the result of a search — it's the result of whoever happened to get looked at. Most of the cafés and coffee shops in that city were never in the running at all, including, very often, the ones quietly doing the best work on an ordinary street with no press.

And when you look at what did get picked, a pattern shows up: unusual interiors, good photography, somewhere that looks remarkable before anything has been poured. That's a real craft and worth celebrating — but it belongs in a design magazine, not in an answer to where you can get an espresso pulled from coffee roasted inside the last two weeks, ground to order, by someone trained to taste what they are serving.

So this one is built the other way round. A business asks to be considered and confirms in writing that every line of the pledge above is true of how they serve coffee. There is no ranking, no best, no order, and nothing is scored except the standard itself — specialty-grade 100% Arabica, a roaster who publishes roast dates and buys fresh current crop-year green, espresso inside roughly three to fourteen days, filter inside three to thirty, ground on demand rather than pre-ground, and staff trained to serve it properly.

We do not inspect anyone, and we are not going to claim we do. A business tells us the truth and we publish what they said, which puts it in front of the people who actually walk through the door. Every blue moon we will buy a bag or ask for some coffee to come to a class, but that is a spot check rather than a system. The real check is a customer who notices the difference between what is written here and what is in the cup. If that is you — a bag with no roast date, pre-ground coffee behind the bar, anything that doesn't match the pledge — email us a photo. That is how a listing actually comes down.

This list is short on purpose. We only began asking businesses to confirm the pledge in writing recently, and only those who have done so appear here. There are excellent cafés, bakeries and coffee shops who simply have not applied yet — we would rather publish a few names we can stand behind than thirty we cannot.

📍 View every approved business on a map

Jump to: British Columbia · Ontario · Nova Scotia · United States

Canada

British Columbia

Ontario

Nova Scotia

United States

New York

Where We Don't Yet Have a Listing

The bar does not move with the border. Fresh roast dates, specialty-grade 100% Arabica, grind on demand, and staff who were actually trained — the same in Halifax, Chicago, or Lisbon.

Most of Canada is open, and so is everywhere beyond it. If you serve coffee to this standard, wherever you are, we would like to hear from you.

The Mark

CBI Approved Coffee seal

Every business on this list receives this seal — as a sticker for the window, in the mail at our cost wherever they are, and as digital files for their website and socials. The files sit permanently at canadianbaristainstitute.com/pages/approved-logo, free, with a usage guide beside them.

If you see this mark in a window, the business should be on this page. If it isn't, the mark is being used without approval, and we would like to know — tell us.

Our Other Lists

This page covers cafés, coffee shops and other businesses serving coffee. You can also browse our Approved Coffee Roasters and the organizations that trust us with their people.

Become CBI Approved

If your café, coffee shop, bakery or coffee-serving business meets our artisan third-wave standard, we invite you to apply. Apply wherever in the world you serve coffee — this list already crosses the border. Approval is based on staff education, bean freshness, equipment quality, and service — not payments or sponsorships. Review the standards and apply here.