California

Best coffee shops in Santa Cruz

Our guide to specialty coffee in Santa Cruz: 4 verified shops, including 11th Hour Coffee, Cat & Cloud Coffee and Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Co.. Santa Cruz is a real craft-coffee town, and a few of its roasters helped shape West Coast third-wave culture. You can pull up to a beachside roastery, a downtown neighborhood roaster, or a longtime local that has been roasting on Pacific Avenue for decades.

4 verified shops · vetted, never pay-to-play

Verified means checked against our specialty criteria using each shop's own public information, not a visit. Last checked Jun 2026. How we choose

The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and beach on a summer day
Photo: The wub, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped, color-adjusted)

Know a shop we're missing in Santa Cruz? Tell us where to find it.