Manitoba's Coffee Scene: 26 Indie Roasters from Winnipeg to the Prairie
Manitoba almost never makes a national coffee roundup. Most Canadian writeups jump from Toronto to Calgary in two paragraphs, and treat the prairies as the gap between the coasts where the road gets long and the cafés get sparse. Manitoba's reputation is wheat, the lake, and the cold — not specialty espresso, not direct-trade lots, not in-house roasting.
That framing is wrong, and a 30-minute drive in any direction from Winnipeg makes it obvious. We mapped 26 active independent coffee roasters across Manitoba as of May 2026, spread across 11 communities. Winnipeg holds 15 of them. The remaining 11 are distributed across the south-central Mennonite belt, Brandon in the west, Lake Winnipeg in the interlake, and small towns from Elma to Dauphin where the roasting happens out of converted garden sheds, double garages, and the back of a parkland storefront. The bench has heritage anchors going back to 1969 and 2000, third-wave operators who started in the 2010s, and a wave of family-and-friends roasteries that have launched since 2018. That mix — multi-decade legacy, third-wave depth in the capital, and a rural long tail that is unusually personal — is what makes Manitoba coffee a distinct story rather than a footnote on a Toronto guide.
Winnipeg: The Prairie's Third-Wave Hub
Winnipeg has 15 independent roasters, more than any other Canadian prairie city outside Calgary and Edmonton. The scene runs across the Exchange District, Sherbrook Street, the Forks, Provencher Boulevard in St. Boniface, and the long Henderson Highway and Portage Avenue corridors. It has heritage operators, third-wave anchors, diaspora-owned origin-direct roasters, and a community-brand cohort that has built quickly since 2020.
Three names anchor the third-wave tier.
Thom Bargen Coffee Roasters is the city's most-cited specialty operator. Founded in 2012 by Thom Hiebert and Graham Bargen — both UM Asper School alumni — the brand ran as a café-only operation for eight years before bringing roasting in-house in Fall 2020 on a Diedrich IR-12. They now operate four cafés (64 Sherbrook Street, 743 and 2090 Corydon Avenue, and 250 Kennedy Street). Stay Winnipeg's 2026 coffee roundup framed Thom Bargen as the operator that "defines Winnipeg coffee for locals and visitors alike," which matches what Sprudge and Th3rdwave have said about them for years.
Dogwood Coffee Canada opened inside Forth at 171 McDermot Avenue in early 2016. CBC News covered the launch under the headline "wants to put Prairies on specialty-coffee map." The Winnipeg roastery is co-owned by Vanessa Stachiw and Nils Vik (the team behind Parlour Coffee and Little Sister Coffee Maker — both sister cafés under the same ownership group, which is why Parlour and Little Sister are not separate entries in our directory), Chad Ermel out of Gimli, and Minneapolis-based Dogwood Coffee Co. USA. The cross-border partnership is unusual for a Canadian indie scene — the Winnipeg operation roasts independently in Winnipeg, but the brand crosses the border. We've flagged Dogwood for closer ownership review on our end while the partnership structure gets confirmed; it currently sits in our directory under indie auspices with that caveat.
Black Pearl Coffee, at 460 Dufferin Avenue, is the heritage anchor. Founded in 2000 by Trevis Boyd — who learned roasting from a Master Roaster in Olympia, Washington before moving to his wife's home of Winnipeg — Black Pearl is one of the first two coffee roasters in Manitoba. Twenty-six years in, the operation runs a roasting facility with attached retail, holds Certified Fair Trade and Certified Organic credentials, and represents the origin point of the modern Manitoba specialty story. CBC News has covered them in a dedicated feature.
Harrisons Coffee Co. operates three locations at The Forks Market in Winnipeg's tourism core, including a dedicated "Roasting Atelier" at 161-25 Forks Market Road. Visible in-house roasting at a national-historic-site tourism heart is unusual — most Canadian provincial capitals don't have a roastery operating in public view at the city's most-visited gathering place. Harrisons does.
The supporting cast in Winnipeg is wide and worth its own paragraph. Empty Cup Collective launched in 2020 and has grown to five locations across the city, including the newest at 365 Main Street in Winnipeg Square (2025). They roast and distribute, host an annual "Celebrating our Differences Day" community event, and have built faster than any other Manitoba roaster cohort. Colosimo Coffee Roasters has been locally owned and operated since 1997, when Jason Colosimo brought what he learned about café culture in Calgary back home. They run multiple locations including 140 Provencher Boulevard, are a 3-time Consumers Choice Award winner, and small-batch roast in Winnipeg.
Thousand Hills Coffee Canada is the city's strongest Rwandan-direct origin story — owners Sim and Julia run a 100% family-owned operation, with Sim having grown up in a Rwandan coffee-farming family. Their bestseller "Sholi" is roasted in Winnipeg from beans sourced through a women's cooperative. Más Coffee Co., at 70 Arthur Street in the Exchange District, focuses on Honduran beans and supplies Saintuary Bar & Cafe; founder Marco came in from a culinary background. Lelas Coffee Roasters is family-owned and Ethiopian-only, working through micro-lot smallholder relationships.
Bricolage Coffee Roasters is a newer micro-roaster — founded 2022 by partners Ashlee and Aaron, free local Winnipeg delivery, DIY-craft positioning that matches the brand name (a French word for handicraft made from available materials). Mugging Whales Specialty Coffee Roasters is the smaller-still cohort — owners Heather and Jim, "Proudly Canadian, Roasted in Manitoba," with retail outposts at the Outlet Collection Mall and Magpie's Café on Osborne. Mountain Bean Coffee Co., at 5-2001 Henderson Highway in North Kildonan, is the log-cabin roastery-café that opens at 6:30am and runs until 10pm on weekdays — owners Keri Parkin and Melanie Gauthier have been running the eastside neighbourhood institution since 2010. Railway Roasters, at 770 Walker Avenue in Fort Rouge, is the family-dedicated, roast-to-order operation hosting workshops; owner Matthew Sieben comes from a railway-industry family. Jacked Up Jill Coffee, founded by Louanne, runs a women-empowerment-themed lineup ("Fuel for her climb") retailed at multiple Winnipeg stores.
De Luca's Coffee, at 950 Portage Avenue, is the other heritage anchor in the city. The De Luca family has been running an Italian grocery, deli, restaurant, and coffee roastery operation since 1969 — a 56-year continuous family business is rare in any Canadian specialty market. They claim to be one of the only Winnipeg roasters running entirely on fair-trade coffee.
For a wider view, Sunstone Coffee Roastery operates from 9 Froese Crescent in Headingley, the rural municipality directly west of Winnipeg. Sunstone is primarily a wholesale roaster — Brazil, Burundi, Colombia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Sumatra origins — with public retail by appointment.
The Mennonite Belt: Steinbach, Winkler, and Niverville
Drive south from Winnipeg and the highway opens into the Mennonite belt — Steinbach, Winkler, Morden, and Niverville form a corridor where Low German is still spoken in many households and the food traditions are deeply rooted. The coffee scene here has a particular shape: small, technically serious, and built for a customer base that knows what it's looking for.
Stone City Coffee Roasters in Steinbach is the most technically distinctive operation in the corridor. They use electric roasting paired with advanced fluid-bed convection technology — a sustainability-and-control angle that is rare in Canadian specialty coffee, where drum roasters dominate almost entirely. Wholesale partnerships with CAA Manitoba and Sobeys Extra Brandon South (which stocks 13 Stone City varieties) mean their footprint reaches across southern Manitoba even if Steinbach itself is the production base.
Hitch + Boler Coffee Roasters & Cafe, at 178 PTH 12 N inside the Clearspring Centre, has been roasting in Steinbach since 2018. The name comes from the founders' vintage camper — a hitch-and-boler — and the brand identity leans into adventure and exploration. They roast on-site in the mall café, which is unusual for a small-town shopping centre operation.
Other Brother Coffee Roasters at 304-191 Kimberly Road in Winkler has been roasting since 2011, with the retail shop opening in 2017. The operation is run by two brothers from a family with coffee roasting in their lineage going back to the early 1900s. They run direct relationships with farmers and have cross-Canada wholesale; Secret Sip named them Roaster of the Month in May 2018.
Negash Coffee at 2b-40 Drovers Run in Niverville is the most editorially distinct operation in the south. Family-owned, focused on Ethiopian organic sources, the roastery is named after King Negash — the 9th-century Ethiopian ruler of the Beni Shangul-Gumuz region. Founder Adam Hashi has lived in Manitoba since 1988, and CBC News covered Negash with the headline "Beans from Ethiopia, but coffee is Manitoba proud." The roastery offers tours and custom-blend creation, and supplies cafés and retailers across southern Manitoba.
Brandon, Gimli, and the Rural Long Tail
The remaining seven indie roasters are spread across Manitoba's secondary cities and small towns — Brandon in the west, Gimli on Lake Winnipeg, and four communities (Elie, Elma, Minnedosa, Dauphin) where the rural roasting story gets unusually personal.
Forbidden Flavours Roastery at 1060-18th Street is Brandon's flagship indie roaster. Brandon was designated a Fair Trade Town in May 2014, and Forbidden Flavours fits that ethic — biodegradable packaging, sustainable sourcing, restaurant wholesale across western Manitoba. The operation is run by Bev as the orders contact.
Flatland Coffee Roasters, at 41 Centre Street in Gimli, is one of the most editorially distinctive roasters in the province. Gimli sits on the west shore of Lake Winnipeg in the interlake region — a town with strong Icelandic heritage where the population is half permanent and half cottage-country in summer. Co-founders Chad and Alicia roast in-house, run five signature blends (Rogue Espresso, North Forty, Peru Decaf, Darkside, Roasters Choice), and supply Café Postal in Winnipeg's St. Boniface district as a wholesale partner. The brand identity — "Coffee roasting on the Canadian prairies" — is one of the cleanest in the country.
Scott Creek Coffee at 16025 Road 58 NW in Elie (about 50 km west of Winnipeg) is a roastery-and-café operation that roasts on demand for freshness. Origins span Colombia, Ethiopia, Peru, Guatemala, Mexico, and Brazil. Custom gift boxes, restaurant supply, and event fundraisers round out the work.
Trail's End Coffee at 5-3rd Street West in Elma was founded in 2013 by Andrew Goossen, who bought his first commercial roaster that year. The roastery operates out of a converted garden shed in Elma — about 115 km east of Winnipeg, in the Whitemouth Rural Municipality, "where prairie meets boreal forest." The seasonal café and year-round e-commerce work has earned a quiet but durable following. A converted garden shed in a town of a few hundred people is exactly the kind of operation that doesn't get national press but is genre-defining for rural Canadian specialty.
Grey Ridge Coffee at 31 6th Avenue NE in Minnedosa was founded in 2018 by Chris Ridgen. The family operation started as a coffee trailer serving Brandon-area events and has grown into a parkland-region roastery supplying retailers, offices, and schools across Manitoba.
Garage 41 Coffee Co. is the most literal small-town roastery story in the province. Founded in 2018 by Brett and Nicole — with their kids Mia and Zach as part of the operation — Garage 41 roasts out of their Manitoba-Ag-approved double garage in Dauphin, in the Parkland region. They were among the first eight Canadian adopters of the CSA-approved Mill City Roaster, and the family keeps regular day jobs while running the roastery on the side. A double garage in Dauphin is not where most national coffee writeups send people, but it is exactly the kind of operation that makes Manitoba's scene worth the drive.
The verify-pending tier — currently inactive in our directory while we confirm in-house roasting and website status — includes Crowded Table Coffee Co in Winnipeg and Green Bean Coffee Imports in Clandeboye. Green Bean in particular is worth noting as a future editorial highlight: owner Derryl Reid runs a Bolivia-direct micro-roaster working with the COAINE cooperative, with strong public coverage in Rhubarb Magazine and the Canadian CED Network. We're chasing down a confirmed working website before reactivating the listing.
What Manitoba Coffee Gets Right
Three things stand out about the Manitoba scene.
The first is that it's unusually personal. Brothers (Other Brother in Winkler), partners (Bricolage's Ashlee and Aaron, Mugging Whales' Heather and Jim, Mountain Bean's Keri and Melanie), full-family operations (Garage 41's Brett, Nicole, Mia, and Zach), multi-decade family businesses (De Luca's since 1969, Colosimo since 1997), and diaspora family operations (Negash's Hashi family, Thousand Hills Canada's Sim and Julia) outnumber non-family operators in this batch. The provincial scene rewards people who are doing this because they care, not because they're chasing scale.
The second is the rural depth. A converted garden shed in Elma. A Manitoba-Ag-approved double garage in Dauphin. A roastery-café in Elie supplying restaurants and gift boxes. An electric-roasted Mennonite-belt operation in Steinbach. A Lake Winnipeg roastery in Gimli running five signature blends. None of these operations exists in places where coffee culture is supposed to thrive — and yet all of them are running, shipping, and supplying. The geographic spread alone (11 communities) is wider than any prairie province outside Alberta.
The third is that Manitoba coffee is not trying to be Toronto or Vancouver. The Toronto scene is direct-trade-heavy and crowded with international names; Vancouver is Italian-espresso-influenced and competition-driven. Manitoba is family-driven, multi-community, and built around either heritage anchors (1969, 2000) or post-2018 newcomers who started small and built slowly. The result is a scene with a distinct identity — quieter, more rural, more personal — that complements the larger Canadian coffee map rather than imitating it.
For travelers crossing the prairies, Manitoba is worth a slowdown in Winnipeg, a stop in Steinbach or Niverville, and a side trip to Gimli, Dauphin, or Elma if the route allows it. For anyone in the trade trying to understand what specialty looks like outside the major Canadian coffee centres, the answer increasingly runs through these 26 indie operators — and the fact that 21 of them ship nationally means you don't have to be on the prairies to drink the coffee.
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Last updated: May 2026