Cafés in Central & Inman Squares, Cambridge

Getting to Central and Inman

Central station on the Red Line serves the square, along with several bus routes.¹ Inman Square has no subway stop; buses pass through, Union Square on the Green Line is a short walk, and from Central Square it takes about 15 minutes on foot up Prospect Street to Cambridge Street.⁴

Central Square has drawn newcomers for well over a century: Irish immigrants between 1850 and 1890, later arrivals from the West Indies, South America and Africa. The Necco candy factory worked here from 1927 to 2003, and the stretch of Massachusetts Avenue between Clinton and Main Streets joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.¹

Cicada and Andala on the Central Square side

Cicada Coffee Bar opened at 106 Prospect Street on February 26, 2021, founded by Vinh Le and Duong Huynh, who both trained as architects.³ It brews Nguyen Coffee Supply beans, serves black-rice bowls and phở salads at lunch, offers no free Wi-Fi and asks customers not to use laptops.⁵ It opens Tuesday to Sunday and closes at 15:00.

Andala Coffee House, on Franklin Street, is a Middle Eastern coffee house owned by Sami Herbawi, who bought Harvard Square’s Café Algiers in 2016.⁶ Verveine Cafe & Bakery and Pacific Street Cafe lie toward MIT; Pacific Street opens 07:00–18:00 on weekdays.

1369 Coffee House and Inman Square

1369 Coffee House opened in January 1993 at 1369 Cambridge Street, in the former 1369 Jazz Club, and added a second shop at 757 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square in June 1994; Josh Gerber owns both.² The Inman shop opens 07:00–15:00 on weekdays and 08:00–16:00 at weekends.

Inman Square has strong Brazilian and Portuguese ties, and no Starbucks.⁴ bōm dough at 1271 Cambridge Street, a Brazilian-fusion bakery with a coffee bar, is known for pão de queijo, Brazilian cheese bread.⁴

Roasters on Broadway and Kirkland Street

Barismo, at 364 Broadway in Mid-Cambridge near the City Hall Annex, was called Dwell Time until it took the name of its roastery in Arlington; it serves pour-overs, often of African and South American beans, with breakfast burritos and scones.⁷ Broadsheet Coffee Roasters opened at 100 Kirkland Street in July 2017 with a Loring S-15 roaster built into the café, and now roasts in Somerville.⁸⁹ Inside are high tables and long benches stocked with newspapers, plus seats outside.⁹