Coffee in New York from the cart to the roaster

New York's coffee comes in two price tiers that share the same sidewalks. A small cup from a Midtown street cart, US$1.50 until recently, now usually costs US$1.75 to US$2.¹ A regular coffee at Gregorys, a chain that opened its first shop on Park Avenue in 2006 and roasts in Queens, cost US$3.45 in the city in September 2025.²

Between those two sit the delis and bodegas, the Greek coffee shops of Queens, roasteries in former Brooklyn warehouses and Yemeni coffeehouses that fill up late at night. Which one you end up in depends on the neighborhood, the hour and how much time you have before the train.

Street carts and the buttered roll

The cheapest cup in Manhattan comes through a cart window. Midtown vendors around Rockefeller Center, the Diamond District and Park Avenue raised prices in early 2026 after their own costs climbed, and some stands now charge up to US$2.50 for a large.¹ One longtime vendor told the New York Post that a 3-pound tub of Costco's Kirkland Colombian coffee, under US$10 in 2020, now costs him more than US$22.¹

Carts are licensed, and their number is capped. In 2022 the city allowed 5,100 mobile food vending permits: 2,800 valid citywide, 200 tied to a single outer borough, 100 for veterans and people with disabilities, 1,000 seasonal permits for April to October and 1,000 green carts for fresh produce.³ Local Law 18 of 2021 adds 4,450 permits over ten years, 3,000 of them for boroughs outside Manhattan. Because of the cap, citywide permits have had waiting lists for years.³

The usual partner for a cart or deli coffee is a buttered roll. WNYC described it in 2017 as a deli-and-bodega staple, a morning go-to eaten with a small coffee, and noted that a New York Times ode to it set off an argument over whether it is really a New York thing at all.⁴

The Greek cup and the coffee exchange

The paper cup most associated with the city was made for its Greek-owned coffee shops and carts. The Sherri Cup Company introduced it in 1963, and its marketing director, Leslie Buck, came up with the line printed on it, "We are happy to serve you".⁵ It is called the Anthora after the amphora, the ancient Greek jar drawn on its side.⁵

Sales peaked at 500 million cups in 1994, the year Starbucks arrived in New York, and fell to about 200 million after Solo Cup bought Sherri in 2005.⁵ Solo stopped large-scale distribution in 2006, MoMA sold a ceramic version in 2003, and the Dart Container Company put the paper cup back into wholesale distribution in 2015.⁵

The city's link to coffee also runs through its markets. The Coffee Exchange of the City of New York was founded in 1882 with Benjamin Green Arnold as its first president; it later merged into the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange, which became part of the New York Board of Trade in 1998 and of IntercontinentalExchange in 2007.¹⁵

Where the roasters and espresso bars are

Brooklyn's specialty scene moved into its old industrial blocks. When Toby's Estate, an Australian roaster, opened its flagship café and a 3,500-square-foot roastery on North 6th Street in Williamsburg in 2012, the stretch between Berry Street and Bedford Avenue was largely empty.⁶ By 2018 its Probat roaster was running 12 to 17 hours a day, more than 3,000 pounds of coffee daily in batches of about 50 pounds.⁶

Bushwick, farther out along the L train, took the next step. In January 2019 the same company opened a 1,800-square-foot café there along with a second roastery, where a restored vintage Probat doubled its roasting capacity.⁷

Astoria in Queens drank Greek coffee long before the third wave. In 2014 Meg Cotner, author of a food lover's guide to Queens, called it "the land of frappes", meaning frappé, the frothy iced coffee of Greek cafés.⁸ That summer a run of independent espresso bars opened on Steinway Street, 30th Street, 33rd Street, Crescent Street and Ditmars Boulevard, some with free Wi-Fi and most pouring beans from outside roasters such as Stumptown, Counter Culture and La Colombe.⁸

In Manhattan, Midtown is commuter coffee: carts on the avenues around Rockefeller Center and Park Avenue, and Gregorys, which started on Park Avenue.¹² Downtown, the West Village mixes espresso bars and old Italian cafés with the newer Yemeni coffeehouses, which do most of their business at night.¹¹

What coffee costs in 2025 and 2026

Beans drove most of the recent rise. The US average retail price of 100% ground roast coffee was US$9.33 a pound in September 2026, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.⁹ In 2025 the United States put a 50% tariff on imports from Brazil, which supplies 35% of the coffee beans the country buys, according to the USDA.² A November 2025 executive action then exempted coffee from those tariffs.¹

New York is not always the most expensive place for a basic cup. Gregorys charged US$3.45 for a regular coffee in the city in September 2025 and US$3.15 at its New Jersey and Washington, D.C. shops.² Nationally, the median price of a regular hot coffee on the Toast payment platform was US$3.52 in August 2025, and a cold brew US$5.47.¹⁰

Prices before sales tax and tip.

Morning rush and late nights

Cart coffee is a commuter's drink, and the carts feel it when habits shift. After the 2026 price rises, Midtown vendors reported lower sales, and office workers near Saks and JPMorgan Chase said they were brewing more at home instead of stopping on the way in.¹

The other end of the day belongs to Yemeni coffeehouses. Qahwah House, a chain from Michigan, opened at 13 Carmine Street in the West Village in July 2023, in the former Greenwich Village Bistro, pouring coffee and chai late into the night.¹¹ In October 2024 CNN found it the busiest spot in that pocket of the West Village on a late Friday, and reported that during Ramadan the crowds at such cafés spill into the street.¹²

Part of the draw is an evening out without a bar. Customers told CNN they came for a social, alcohol-free room without loud music, and the SoHo chain Haraz styled its interior on Islamic architecture, with pointed arches.¹²

Cash, cards and tipping

Cash still works almost everywhere. In January 2020 the City Council barred stores from refusing cash or charging cash payers more, with fines of up to US$1,500.¹³ The one exemption is a shop with a machine that turns cash into a prepaid card that never expires, charges no fee and needs a deposit of no more than US$1.¹³

Tipping at a counter is common but optional. In an August 2023 Pew Research Center survey of US adults, 25% said they always or often tip when buying coffee, and 72% said tipping is expected in more places than five years earlier.¹⁴