I've seen a couple threads spanning several years where travelers are passing by Las Vegas and looking for a good espresso or café. Thankfully the coffee community in Vegas is growing (albeit slowly). Below are some of the best coffee places I've found that aren't your typical "expensive-on-the-strip-espresso-cafe":

Grouchy John's Coffee Shop
http://grouchyjohns.com/
This is, at the moment, my favorite coffee shop in the Vegas/Henderson area. They use a local roaster (Colorado River Coffee Roasters, I'll discuss them shortly) for their beans and are extremely friendly. Local art sits on the walls, board games galore available for anyone to play, and plenty of nerdy Star Wars stuff to make the local feel right at home. They also have a variety of flavored and mixed drinks with pastries to accompany your coffee. Grouchy John's was also listed as Nevada's best coffee shop in the 2014 Business Insider ratings. Great coffee.

Sambalatte
http://sambalatte.com/
Sambalatte is one of the more well-known coffee shops in Vegas. They originally started with their Northern location in Boca Park and have since grown to three locations across the valley to include one on the South side of town and their newest location inside the Monte Carlo casino. The two off-the-strip locations use the same local roaster as Grouchy John's, but the location on the strip has their own roasting facility for that location (they have invested a lot of time and money into their roasting shop and while I have yet to check it out I hear great things). Their food offerings tend to remind me of what you'd see at a coffee shop similar to Starbucks. Sambalatte has a very unique feel and is a really nice place to sit down and enjoy a great cup of coffee.

Galaxy Cafe
http://www.yelp.com/biz/galaxy-cafe-henderson
Galaxy Cafe is a relatively new coffee shop that opened on the south side of town in Henderson. It is an extremely roomy coffee shop with plenty of Star Wars and Star Trek paraphernalia to make any geek happy. I don't remember where they get their beans but I really enjoy their lattes and hope they gain enough traction in the local area to gain a following. They have some really unique and great flavored drinks (both hot and cold) with fun names, setting them apart from most of the other coffee places I've seen in town. They have deli sandwiches and breakfast plates that look better than one would expect from a coffee shop.

Sunrise Coffee
http://www.sunrisecoffeelv.com/
Disclaimer: I still haven't had a chance to visit Sunrise Coffee, but all I've heard are GREAT things. They are just east of the McCarran Airport and they are Vegan and Vegetarian friendly. I know several people that herald this shop as their favorite and plan to make my way there sometime soon. They also have several food selections in addition to plenty of coffee and tea options.


Colorado River Coffee Roasters
http://www.crcoffeeroasters.com/
This is the most well-known local roaster in the Las Vegas area. They are located in Boulder City which is right outside of Vegas. I recently had a chance to stop by and try out their other types of coffee aside from their Redwall Espresso (which is what Grouchy John's and Sambalatte use) and was very impressed. Their head roaster, Eric, is incredibly friendly and spent a couple hours with me explaining how the roasting process works with their equipment. Online ordering is their preference and I definitely plan to order plenty more of their coffee.


Please feel free to add some more cafes to the list. I live on the South side of town so I don't know much about what potential great coffee shops exist up in Summerlin other than word-of-mouth.

-Joe

I thought I remembered reading somewhere about a great mobile coffee setup in Vegas, but I can't remember the name.

This is coming:

http://www.publicuslv.com/

See their Twitter handle (https://twitter.com/publicuslv) or Cole McBride's (https://twitter.com/colecoffee) for the latest info. Should be quite something.

I will definitely check it out once they get rolling and provide my feedback!

I've been to Sambalatte (S. Jones Blvd location) and Sunrise Coffee many times each. Both are very good and highly recommended. My recommendation is to go to whichever is closer to wherever you are. Thank you very much for the recommendations on the other places.

Only sad thing is that I gave up on coffee in Las Vegas many years ago so I ended up driving past Sunrise Coffee for years until discovering them this year.

gsylvest wrote:Only sad thing is that I gave up on coffee in Las Vegas many years ago so I ended up driving past Sunrise Coffee for years until discovering them this year.

I actually didn't even start drinking coffee until about a year and a half ago! And that started with nasty drip coffee at work... I had written all coffee off as the same (Starbucks kind of upheld that theory) until I tried other cafes. I'm definitely going to make my way to Sunrise Coffee over the next couple weeks, I'm sure I'll be impressed!

I'm traveling to Vegas next week, is there anything new that should be on the list above?

If I were ever to travel to LV, Publicuslv would be the café I would try to find.

I was just in town and drove over to PublicUs only to find it still under construction. Despite what the google listing says, it was closed.

I am going to confirm the list above. Great coffee all around.

I found the Sambalatte (Sunset / Jones) was the most convenient for me, and provided a great "steampunk" every day.

Grouchy Johns, while out of my way, was also a nice place serving great coffee.

and Sunset was the most "vegan" of the bunch, definitely a different atmosphere than the other shops. It was awkward to stand around and wait for a pour-over.