Best Independent Coffee Roasters in Shreveport, Louisiana (2026)
Shreveport sits in the corner of Louisiana that is closer to Dallas than to Baton Rouge - and the local roasting bench reflects that distance. Six active indie roasters work the city, with a seventh across the Red River in Bossier City. The lineage runs from an 1896 Ruston coffee operation to a 2012 specialty roastery, with an unusually high concentration of air-roasters in between.
Shreveport is the largest city in Northwest Louisiana, and the coffee market behaves more like East Texas or South Arkansas than like the rest of the state. The drive to Dallas is three hours; the drive to New Orleans is five. The Magazine Street corridor and the Northshore are all on the other side of a long state, which means the Shreveport-Bossier metro has built its own coffee scene without much spillover from the Gulf. The result is a bench that is small in headcount and surprisingly broad in technique - heritage drum-roasted blends, modern specialty single origins, and a cluster of air-roasters that would stand out in any metro of comparable size.
Jelks Coffee Roasters traces its lineage to 1896 in Ruston, where the F.E. Morgan family roasted coffee for friends and neighbors. After a 1978 merger with Harvey Jelks' office coffee service, the operation moved to Shreveport and now sells more than 200 flavored and origin coffees. Rhino Coffee opened in 2012 under Andrew Crawford, sourcing direct from Colombia and Ethiopia - the modern specialty anchor in the metro. Kern Has Coffee, Louisiana Roasting Company, Lyons' Pride, and My Friend's Coffee Co fill in the small-batch bench, with Black Bayou operating from a 2020-built roasting house in Bossier City.
We've mapped six active independent roasters inside Shreveport proper, plus the seventh across the Red River. What follows is a guide organized around what these operators are actually doing - heritage versus modern specialty, drum versus air-roasted - rather than a ranked list.
The modern specialty anchor
Rhino Coffee
Rhino was founded in 2012 by Andrew Crawford, who opened the original location on Southfield Road in Uptown Shreveport. The expansion went downtown to Texas Street in 2016 and then to a third spot on the Southern Loop, built around a partnership with Southern Maid Donuts. The roastery sources direct from farms in Colombia and Ethiopia and runs a smart-tech roaster that the company estimates cuts emissions by roughly 80% compared to a traditional drum. For Shreveport coffee drinkers who want one starting point in the metro, Rhino is the strongest single recommendation - three locations, a competitive sourcing program, and a decade of continuous specialty operation in a market that didn't have one before 2012.
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The heritage operation
Jelks Coffee Roasters
Jelks is the longest-running coffee operation in Northwest Louisiana and one of the longest-running in the South. The lineage starts in 1896 in Ruston, where the F.E. Morgan family roasted coffee for friends and neighbors for decades. In 1972 Harvey Jelks started an office coffee service in Ruston; in 1978 the Jelks operation merged with the Morgan family business, moved to Shreveport, and rebranded. The current roasting plant sits at 456 W 61st Street under owner Michael Slack. The catalog is broader than most modern indie roasters carry - over 200 flavored and origin coffees, served through wholesale, online sales, and direct delivery to North Louisiana offices. Jelks ships nationally and is the obvious pick for buyers who want a flavored or traditional coffee program rather than a tight modern single-origin catalog.
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The air-roaster bench
Kern Has Coffee
Kern Has Coffee is run by Kern Courtney, a Shreveport roaster who started small - a friend gave him a homemade air-roaster, he taught himself the process, and he began selling at the Texas Avenue Makers Fair in 2011 before becoming a vendor at the Shreveport Farmers Market. The operation has stayed deliberately small-batch and direct-to-customer, and the air-roasting method (as opposed to drum-roasting) is one of the things Courtney leans into specifically. Air-roasting moves heat through the bean differently and tends to produce a cleaner finish, which some specialty drinkers prefer for single-origin work. Kern Has Coffee is one of the more under-the-radar names on this list - a single-operator roastery that exists because the founder cares about the cup, not because there was a category strategy behind it.
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Louisiana Roasting Company
Louisiana Roasting Company was founded in 2009 in Shreveport and operates as a family-run roaster and importer. The program is unusual in offering both air-roasted and traditionally drum-roasted coffee - most roasters commit to one method, and the dual setup gives the team room to experiment with which approach fits which lot. The catalog runs roast-to-order, which means bags ship within a day or two of being roasted rather than sitting on a shelf. For Shreveport home brewers who want freshness as the lead variable and the option to try the same green coffee in two different roast methods side by side, Louisiana Roasting Company is the most directly comparable to that approach in the metro.
See their full profile on Roast Local | Visit their website
The small-batch bench
Lyons' Pride Coffee
Lyons' Pride operates from 3809 Youree Drive under owner-roaster Peter Lyons, a Shreveport-Bossier native with 20-plus years in the coffee industry and SCA roaster certification. The operation runs as a small-batch hand-crafted roastery, but the framing extends past the bag program: Lyons works on coffee education locally and runs job programs aimed at autistic, Down syndrome, and blind workers. That community-employment angle is rare in the small-batch roasting category, and it shapes the way the operation runs day to day. The bag program covers single origins from established growing regions, sold through the cafe-and-roastery, online orders, and local accounts. For Shreveport drinkers who want a roaster whose mission extends past the cup, Lyons' Pride is the obvious answer.
See their full profile on Roast Local | Visit their website
My Friend's Coffee Co
My Friend's didn't start as a business. The origin story is a guy in his backyard with a roaster, sharing bags with family, then friends of family, then friends of friends, until the demand crossed a line where it had to become an actual operation. The company runs from 1202 Joseph Street in north Shreveport under owner Patty Cramer - the same Cramer surname that shows up at Louisiana Roasting Company, suggesting a family link in the local coffee bench worth noting if not over-claiming. The model leans into small-batch with national shipping, and the brand framing keeps the friend-recommended-it origin alive on the bag rather than trying to scrub it. For Shreveport home brewers who like the idea of buying from a roaster whose customer base started as personal relationships, My Friend's is the most literal version of that on the list.
See their full profile on Roast Local | Visit their website
Across the Red River: Bossier City
Black Bayou Coffee Roasters
Black Bayou is the newest serious operation in the metro. Jeremy Bohnenkamp founded the company in November 2020 after 15 years roasting coffee, including a 13-year run with another coffee company before going independent. Roasting started in June 2021, immediately after the construction of a dedicated roasting house in Bossier City - the kind of from-scratch buildout that signals a long-game commitment rather than a side project. The bag program is small-batch and the operation is single-location, but the founder's tenure means the technical floor is higher than the launch date suggests. For Shreveport drinkers who want to taste coffee from a 15-year roaster who built his own roasting house in 2021, it's worth the bridge.
See their full profile on Roast Local | Visit their website
What makes Shreveport's roasting scene different
Shreveport behaves like its own corner of Louisiana coffee, separate from New Orleans and Baton Rouge by geography and by lineage. The chicory-and-Café du Monde tradition that defines New Orleans does not extend to the Northwest part of the state. Instead, the Shreveport-Bossier coffee story has been written through two parallel threads: a heritage drum-roasting operation with roots back to 1896, and a modern specialty roastery that opened in 2012 and built the contemporary scene from scratch. Both threads are still running. Jelks ships flavored and origin coffees nationally with a 200-bag catalog. Rhino runs three cafes and sources direct from origin. Neither displaces the other.
The other variable worth flagging is the air-roaster cluster. Kern Has Coffee, Louisiana Roasting Company, and Black Bayou all use air-roasting in some form - a method that handles roughly 1% of coffee globally. Three air-roasters inside one metro of Shreveport's size is a higher concentration than most American cities have, and it gives the local bench a technical range that maps poorly onto comparable metros. If you care about air-roasted coffee specifically, Northwest Louisiana is one of the better places in the country to taste a few side by side.
Browse all seven Shreveport-Bossier roasters on Roast Local's Shreveport city page, or open the Explore map to see how Northwest Louisiana sits inside the broader Louisiana coffee scene.
For the rest of Louisiana - New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and the Northshore towns - follow the Louisiana state guide or the state directory.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many independent coffee roasters are in Shreveport?
We've mapped six active independent coffee roasters in Shreveport proper - Rhino Coffee, Jelks Coffee Roasters, Kern Has Coffee, Louisiana Roasting Company, Lyons' Pride Coffee, and My Friend's Coffee Co - plus a seventh just across the Red River in Bossier City: Black Bayou Coffee Roasters. Northwest Louisiana sits in its own corner of the state, closer to Dallas than to Baton Rouge or New Orleans, and the local roasting bench reflects that distance: a heritage operation founded in 1896, a modern specialty anchor that opened in 2012, and a handful of small-batch and air-roasting operators in between.
What's distinctive about Shreveport's coffee scene?
Shreveport's roasting scene is shaped by two facts: it's the oldest coffee market in Louisiana outside New Orleans, and it operates with no proximity to the rest of the state's coffee bench. Jelks Coffee Roasters traces its lineage to 1896 in Ruston, making it one of the longest-running coffee operations in the South. Rhino Coffee opened in 2012 and built the modern specialty program in the metro from scratch, sourcing direct from Colombia and Ethiopia and running a low-emissions roaster. Kern Has Coffee, Louisiana Roasting Company, and Black Bayou all use air-roasters, which is unusually concentrated for a single metro - Northwest Louisiana has more air-roasted coffee per capita than most of the country. The cluster is small but the technical range is wide.
Do Shreveport coffee roasters ship nationwide?
Three of the seven Shreveport-Bossier roasters ship nationally according to our database: Jelks Coffee Roasters, Rhino Coffee, and My Friend's Coffee Co. The others - Kern Has Coffee, Louisiana Roasting Company, Lyons' Pride, and Black Bayou - are easier to buy from in person at the roastery or through their direct sites, and most will ship if you order online or call. For out-of-state buyers wanting a Shreveport-roasted bag, Rhino is the most accessible specialty option, Jelks is the heritage pick with a 200-flavor catalog, and My Friend's runs the kind of small-batch online program that started in a backyard and grew on word of mouth.
Where in Shreveport should I look for indie roasters?
Rhino Coffee operates three locations across Shreveport: Uptown on Southfield Road, Downtown on Texas Street, and a Southern Loop spot in South Shreveport partnered with Southern Maid Donuts. Jelks roasts at 456 W 61st Street in south Shreveport. Lyons' Pride is at 3809 Youree Drive on the city's main commercial corridor. My Friend's Coffee operates at 1202 Joseph Street in north Shreveport. Kern Has Coffee and Louisiana Roasting Company run smaller-footprint operations centered on the local farmers market and direct sales. Across the Red River in Bossier City, Black Bayou roasts from a dedicated roasting house. Most of the bench is reachable in a 20-minute drive across the metro.
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Last updated: May 2026