Best Independent Coffee Roasters in Reno, Nevada (2026)
Reno isn't the coffee city you'd expect, and that's exactly why the scene works. Here are the 12 independent roasters making it happen across Reno and Sparks.
We map 12 independent coffee roasters across the Reno-Sparks metro: 10 in Reno proper and 2 in neighboring Sparks. For a metro of about 500,000 people, that is a real coffee scene, and a more interesting one than Reno's reputation would predict.
Reno runs on three kinds of coffee demand. Casino tourism brings volume. Lake Tahoe weekenders pass through on their way to the mountains. And the University of Nevada, Reno keeps a steady student base caffeinated nine months a year. None of that, on its own, builds a roasting culture. What built Reno's is the fourth group: locals who wanted better coffee than a casino buffet, and a set of roasters who decided to give it to them. Some of those roasters have been at it since before specialty coffee was a national movement. Laughing Cat opened in 1990. Wood-Fire Roasted started in 2001. The scene here is older than it looks.
The Originals
Laughing Cat Coffee Roasters
Laughing Cat is the oldest specialty coffee roaster in Reno, established in 1990, back when specialty coffee was barely a category anywhere. The roastery and cafe sit on Airway Drive in south Reno. In 2024 the business was acquired by Steven Horn, who had been roasting around Reno under the name Horn Coffee, and the relaunch kept Laughing Cat's history while updating the operation. The single-origin lineup rotates, and the focus leans toward origin transparency: who grew the coffee, where, and how the supply chain treated them. If you want the through-line of Reno coffee history in one cup, start here.
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Wood-Fire Roasted Coffee Company
Wood-Fire Roasted Coffee Company has been roasting in Reno since 2001, and they do it the way the name says: over an oak wood fire. That is an uncommon method. Most roasters use gas or electric drum roasters, and roasting over actual wood takes more attention and produces a different cup. Owner Tim Curry has run the operation for more than two decades from a space on Ohm Place in east Reno, supplying wholesale accounts and running subscription and fundraiser programs alongside the retail shop. It is the kind of roaster that does one distinctive thing and has done it long enough to be good at it.
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Bibo Coffee Company
Bibo Coffee Company has been a Reno fixture for over twenty years, which makes it one of the longest-running independent coffee businesses in the city. Bibo roasts small batches in-house and runs multiple cafes around Reno, including a downtown location on South Sierra Street. It also makes gelato fresh daily, which is not standard for a coffee roaster and gives the cafes a different character than a pure specialty shop. The single-origin lineup includes long-running offerings like Malabar Gold and Monsoon Mysore. Bibo has won local "best coffee" recognition more than once, and the loyalty it gets from Reno regulars is the kind that takes decades to build.
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The Established Names
Hub Coffee Roasters
Hub Coffee Roasters is the most visible name in Reno coffee. Founded in 2009, Hub runs multiple cafes across the city, including a well-known spot on Riverside Drive along the Truckee River. The roasting program is serious: the founder is a part-owner of three coffee farms in Colombia, which is about as direct as direct sourcing gets. Hub has been written up in Barista Magazine, Sprudge, and Coffee Review, and it was named in the Reno News & Review's Best of Northern Nevada in 2025. If you are new to Reno coffee, Hub is the broadest and most accessible starting point, and the quality holds up to the visibility.
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Magpie Coffee Roasters
Magpie Coffee Roasters hand-roasts coffee in small batches, which makes it the most craft-scale operation on this list. Matthew Sewell founded Magpie in 2011 to bring specialty coffee to Reno, and the roastery and cafe occupy an airy barn-style space at the south end of South Wells Avenue, well away from the casino district. Hand-roasting means more time per batch and tighter control over the result, and Magpie's single-origin pour-overs show it. Local outlet This Is Reno once called it the quintessential Reno coffeeshop, and that fits: it is specialty coffee without the pretension.
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Old World Coffee Roasters
Old World Coffee Roasters opened on Memorial Day weekend in 2015, built by hand by a group of friends and family in a small Midtown Reno cafe. Ten years later it has grown into one of Reno's most established roasters, with cafes in Midtown, northwest Reno, and Carson City, plus a dedicated roastery and a wholesale program. The lineup runs the full roast range, light through dark, with single origins from Ethiopia and Colombia and a rotating set of blends. Old World also operates as Old World Coffee Lab, and the decade of steady growth has made it a backbone of the current scene.
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The New Generation
Midnight Coffee Roasting
Midnight Coffee Roasting is a father-and-son operation that started as a garage roaster in Santa Cruz, California, before setting up its flagship roastery and cafe on South Virginia Street in Midtown Reno. Graeson and Craig roast for body and mouthfeel: big body, low acidity, lots of flavor, which is a deliberate counterpoint to the bright, acidic style a lot of modern specialty coffee chases. They have grown their roasting capacity from one kilo to three and have sourced through the Genuine Origin project for close to a decade. It is a small, family-run operation with a clear point of view.
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Forged Coffee Roasting Co.
Forged Coffee Roasting Co. roasts on a San Franciscan SF-25 and runs its cafe and roastery out of The Jesse, a boutique hotel in Reno's Brewery District. It is one of the newer roasters in town and one of the more downtown-anchored, sitting in the stretch of East 4th Street that has become Reno's most concentrated food-and-drink corridor. Forged is Instagram-first rather than website-first, so the easiest way to see what they are roasting this week is their feed or a stop at the shop.
Rising for People Coffee Co.
Rising for People Coffee Co. is a Black-owned roaster and cafe in Midtown Reno, run by Sky Jones and Jesse Abshire. In 2024 a vehicle crashed through their original building, and rather than fold, they used it as the reason to relocate to a new space on Vesta Street. The new cafe runs what they bill as Reno's first roast-on-demand setup, an energy-efficient electric roaster that lets them roast small and fresh while cutting the carbon footprint of the operation. The sourcing focus is small, family-run farms using chemical-free methods. It is the most mission-forward roaster in the metro.
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America Coffee Co.
America Coffee Co. is a Reno roaster that leans heavily online. Founded in 2020, it roasts to order and ships to all fifty states, with a lineup of house blends (Cowboy, One Nation, Brave, Denali) alongside single origins. The operation runs out of a space on South Meadows Parkway in south Reno and is built more around subscriptions and direct shipping than walk-in cafe traffic. If you want Reno-roasted coffee delivered rather than poured, this is the one set up for it.
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Across the Line: Sparks
Sparks sits directly east of Reno, close enough that the two cities effectively share a metro, far enough that Sparks has started building a small coffee identity of its own. Two independent roasters work here.
Glory Cloud Coffee Roasters
Glory Cloud Coffee Roasters runs a commercial roasting facility with an attached coffee shop on Greg Street in Sparks. The lineup is all 100% Arabica, with single origins from Guatemala, Brazil, Honduras, and Ethiopia plus a medium-roast house blend, and they keep beans moving fast enough to ship within about two weeks of the roast date. Beyond retail, Glory Cloud runs wholesale, private-label, and fundraising programs, which is how a number of Sparks-area businesses end up serving Glory Cloud coffee without the name on the cup.
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Lighthouse Coffee
Lighthouse Coffee is a family-owned operation run by the Prinz family, with three locations: two in Sparks (on Vista Boulevard and Harbour Cove Drive) and one in Reno on South Virginia Street. The coffee is roasted in-house at the family's Reno roasting facility and served across all three cafes, with a wholesale program on top. It is the second roaster in Sparks proper, and between Lighthouse and Glory Cloud, Sparks now has a coffee scene of its own rather than being a Reno afterthought.
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What Reno Coffee Gets Right
Reno does not have the roaster density of Portland or the investment capital of the Bay Area. What it has is range, and an unusual amount of it for a metro this size.
In a single week you could drink a hand-roasted single origin from Magpie, a wood-fire-roasted cup from Wood-Fire Roasted, a body-forward roast from Midnight, and a farm-direct coffee from Hub, whose founder co-owns the farms it comes from. That spread usually requires a much bigger market. Reno gets there because its roasters are not all chasing the same style.
The scene is also older than its reputation. Laughing Cat opened in 1990 and Wood-Fire Roasted in 2001, well before specialty coffee was a national story, and Bibo has been at it for over twenty years. That depth means Reno's coffee culture is not a recent transplant. It grew locally and it stuck.
And it is still growing. Rising for People relocated and reopened in 2024 rather than closing after a literal crash through its building. Forged set up in the Brewery District. The newer roasters here are not fighting for scraps in a saturated market the way they would be in Seattle or Portland. There is still room in Reno, which is the clearest sign of a healthy scene.
Browse all 10 Reno roasters and both Sparks roasters on the Nevada directory, or pull up the full national map on Explore. Not sure which roaster matches your taste? Take the quiz to get matched.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many independent coffee roasters are in Reno?
Reno has 10 independent coffee roasters as of 2026, with 2 more in neighboring Sparks, for 12 across the Reno-Sparks metro. The count includes operations that roast their own beans in-house, not cafes that resell another roaster's coffee.
What is Reno known for in specialty coffee?
Reno's specialty coffee scene is known for range rather than scale. A metro of about 500,000 people supports roasters working in distinct styles: hand-roasted small batches at Magpie, wood-fire roasting at Wood-Fire Roasted, body-forward profiles at Midnight, and farm-direct sourcing at Hub, whose founder co-owns three farms in Colombia.
Which Reno coffee roasters have been around the longest?
Laughing Cat Coffee Roasters is the oldest, established in 1990. Wood-Fire Roasted Coffee Company has roasted in Reno since 2001, and Bibo Coffee Company has operated for over twenty years. Reno's coffee scene predates the national specialty-coffee boom.
Do Reno coffee roasters ship nationwide?
Several do. Hub Coffee Roasters, Bibo Coffee Company, Old World Coffee Roasters, Wood-Fire Roasted Coffee Company, and America Coffee Co. all offer online ordering with shipping, and America Coffee Co. is built specifically around roast-to-order national delivery. In Sparks, Glory Cloud Coffee Roasters ships nationally as well.
Where can I buy locally roasted coffee in Reno and Sparks?
Most Reno and Sparks roasters sell directly from their own cafes and websites. Hub Coffee Roasters has the widest cafe footprint in Reno, and Midtown Reno has the highest concentration of roasters, with Old World, Midnight, and Rising for People all within a short distance. In Sparks, Glory Cloud Coffee Roasters and Lighthouse Coffee both sell from their roasteries.
Last updated: May 2026