Metropolis Coffee Company

Great coffee, as long as you have 20 minutes to wait around for it.

This is one of my favorite spots in the city. Great staff and warm environment. Good place to get some coffee and read a book, surf the web and/​or chat with a friend. Although at certain times it is difficult to find seats because it is such a popular spot. But most of the customers are friendly enough to share their tables, so don’t be shy. They also have outdoor seating when it isn’t freezing.
It is only a few blocks east from the Granville Redline. They have a small parking lot west of the building (one hour limit), street parking in front and neighborhood parking that isn’t permit if you choose to drive. They have bike racks in front of the shop and around the corners for bikes.
Tip: If it is your first time, they have three doors, two of which are for emergency use only. Check the labels on the door to make sure it is the right one so you don’t look like you’re trying to are wrestle the door.

Super friendly and delicious coffee. Outside seats are usually available during the warmer months.

THE.BEST.COFFEE.EVER.
I don’t go to this location much, but when I do, they make incredibly delicious coffee. I highly recommend to consider checking out this place.

Metropolis is a shining example of great coffee, and their large location on Granville is extremely popular, so get ready for a location filled with folks who love it!
The sign at this location says it opens at 7:30am on a Sunday — however — don’t let that fool you! I got there at 7:29am, and there were already 10 people in line!
I particularly like the fact that this place has a kitchen, and they serve up some excellent lox and bagel — complete with capers and onions — YUM.
The coffee is of course excellent, and though the space is large and filled with tables, I still somehow managed to hear my name when my order was up. It was a little bit chilly, so be sure to bring a layer or two if you get cold easily.
If you’re looking for a quiet place to think — this place isn’t for you. However, they do have free wi-​fi, and it’s a good place to meet up with friends over an excellent latte, chai, mocha, or tea.
Cheers!

This is a great big space for studying. The employees are kinda meh which made my never ending search for the perfect study place continue.

Came for the Indie Coffee Pass and got a double Cortado which was a beautiful drink.
The barista who took care of us was smiley and highly recommended the Lakeshore Fog which I now really want to try.
Lots of local art and photographs, and a good amount of seating.
Here around 11:30 on a Sunday, the line for the counter wrapped around the front area of the shop. So it seems that it’s a pretty hoppin’ place!

The staff here is always so friendly and helpful!
I have a caffeine allergy so I can review the coffee but their herbal teas are delicious and the pastries they bring in are incredible!

Great staff, excellent coffee and pretty good pastries. A wonderful bang for your buck.
My daughter and I went there 3 out of 4 mornings during our trip to Chicago for a tour of the Loyola University campus.
Day 1. Walked up to the counter and ordered a drip Brazilian med roast and a 4-​shot Macchiato, an apple-​cherry pie slice and a coffee cake. The macchiato was excellent… a wonderful dollop of foam on top of 4 shots of espresso wherein the crema formed perfectly to provide a nice set of layers… espresso, crema, foamy milk… the drip coffee was really nice with a great balace.
Day 2. Walked in and was greeted by the cashier by my first name… very impressive considering that the previous morning, we decided to explore a different part of the city. We wanted to see their latte art skills and ordered cups of cappuccino and latte and was not disappointed. The coffee was awesome by the way with perfect balance of richness, nuttiness, smokiness (very very slight), brightness and cocoa.
Day 3. We were greeted like regulars amidst the crowd in line. That was special. We ordered a couple of 12 oz cups, my daughter got the Ethiopian drip and I got the Colombian pourover. Again, nothing but great things to say about their coffee as it seems that their roaster knows what he is doing.
If my daughter decides to attend Loyola, they have a regular customer in her. If that happens, I will probably end up making friends with the roaster and share some knowledge with him/​her as well as learn new things from the rest of the staff.
I’m hooked.

Cool little coffee shop just a few blocks south of Loyola University campus. Free wifi with lots of tables and seats if you fancy a spot to sip on coffee and catch up on some emails or get some studying done. For the same price as Starbucks, you can get a much better cup of coffee from here, SO WHY NOT?
They do have those nifty Kyoto Style ice coffee makers if you wanna get something unique as well as a variety of different coffee beans you can choose from for their pourover method. Be sure to take your coffee straight black with no sugar or cream to really get a taste of the coffee for what it’s worth. There is a difference!
‘Til next time, cheers!

Ouuuu I liked this place!
Perfect, cute lil coffee shop!
I came here with my crazy cousin and he’s ADHD self ran to the back to talk to one of the coffee baristas because he found out they also brew coffee using the cold press method (or something like that). so he was in the back for a while talking to a cool barista.
Meanwhile I ordered a medium mocha and it was delicious!!! Also they do the cool cute coffee designs on the top and I was just simply content!
There was an ample amount of sitting. The crowd was a good mix.
Once my cousin came back (like 20 minutes later), we shared a piece of apple pie, which was good, but not something like «wow». but decent.
Highly recommend you go and try their coffee!!!

Nice seating area and change of pace from Evanston’s coffee shops. Tried the Kyoto iced coffee, which has a very distinct flavor but was good nonetheless. The spinach Gruyère quiche was yummy but nothing to write home about. I like the variety of seating options… multiple large communal tables and smaller tables near the wall. I came on Election Day so it was probably a bit louder than usual but still a great environment for getting some work done.

This is probably one of my favorite coffee shops in Chicago. The coffee is excellent! The shop has a hippy feel to it with a welcoming environment. It’s usually crowded with students probably from Loyola since it’s close by. It’s also close to the lake. So my friends and I like to grab coffee from here and walk over to the lake nearby. The lake also has a playground that the kids can play at while you enjoy your coffee and the view.
In terms of parking there’s a good amount of free street parking. The service is always excellent!
I like to get the house blend of the day, mocha and my friend got the Mexican hot cocoa (I think) it was excellent. In terms of coffee my three favorite places to get a good cup of coffee are from metropolis, intelligentsia and ipsento. Definitely check this place out! They also sell there house blend coffee beans at target if you can’t make it out to the store.

About as cool as an independant area coffee shop can be. Comfy seats, lots of room, excellent coffee, an all around excellent societal setting. The folks are friendly, the food is great, but the java is the star of the show. Roasted on premise, this really is as fresh and high quality as there may be, also it reveals. From their espresso based beverages to the entire bean coffee to bring home, everything tastes wonderful.

Great place close to the beach. It has a great walking distance. I find that the service is wonderful

I hung out all day here and it was great for studying! Although it was hard to find a table in the morning, by the afternoon there were plenty of open seats. A bonus is that they have lots of outlets all over so it’s a great place to study.
Their chai is so delicious too! A little pricey but definitely worth it on a cold day.

Service was okay. Nobody was rude, but nobody seemed to sincerely greet my friend and I. Coffee was a okay, not great, but not horrible. The apple pie was honestly not good. I was surprised since the visual of it was beautiful. Their products are relatively affordable, but I doubt I would come back this far.

I really like the atmosphere of this place. It’s your usual café with great wifi. There are many seats and there are a lot of people, but it’s not noisy, just the soft background chatter. I find this place perfect to study or get work done individually.
I would definitely come here again, and take advantage of the free parking! I didn’t know there was one, and ended up parking a couple blocks away in the residential areas because I didn’t want to pay for parking! The lot next to the café is for MCC customers as well as those going to the thai restaurant across the street.

I cannot find a place like this serving sophisticated latte and nice intensity and flavor of coffee :) I enjoyed my latte with free wifi.
Two things, I want to suggest this place are 1) spacing and 2) cleaning.
I think they can organize interiors to fit more people and be wise to use space efficiently. This large crowd of people fighting for seating leads my second concern. It won’t let any staffs to clean up the tables and floors because as soon as table is open,
It was taken in a second, so it kept uncleanliness all the time. I hope they will fix these soon.

I have been frequenting Metropolis for the past 5 years, and I continue to believe that they carry some of the best coffee in the city. The coffee is strong and flavorful, and the company is consistently creating new blends to feature. I always give Metropolis coffee as gifts around the holidays, and it never disappoints.

Two stars. Coffee is fresh roast but their gimmick seems to involve playing around with different varieties of beans and mixing light/​dark roasts together to make some of their signature blends. Not a huge fan of this sort of apostasy – having a coffee with both a loud citrus (underdone) and a scorched plywood flavor (well done) is just not palatable, IMO.
Facility is good sized and hipsterish in décor, replete with café tables, weird furniture and avant-​garde artsy pictures on the walls.
The baristas seem aloof and forcibly nice, and act like they all belong to some exclusive coffee guild that only tolerates customers if they genuflect and pay proper homage to their skills. They appear to communicate with each other using eye rolls, smirks and odd looks, usually while you’re ordering. Not sure of the exact dialect, but if you’re into having your coffee made by a guild-​like group of folks then you’re all set.
Despite having a cash tip jar on the counter they will SHAMELESSLY AUTO-​TIP YOU on your bill if you use a CC to pay. This tees me off, especially when I’m just buying a coffee and leaving the premises – what service am I needing to tip them for? There is no real service involved. And if you dare to check «no tip» on your receipt then they get kind of short with you – zero to bitch in 3 seconds.
The desserts are usually creative in nature and reasonably priced – had a great oatmeal pie there once.
Two stars.

I love going to Metropolis — strong internet connection, plenty of seating, they’ll give you more hot water for your tea as often as you want. What is there not to like?
I usually get the weekly pairing, because why not? Also because it saves me the stress of trying to pick a tea off what I think is a very substantial list, and then deciding whether or not to get a pastry. Just get the pastry and the tea they suggest. You won’t be disappointed.
Protip: if you have 500+ followers on Instagram, download the app Popular Pays for a free weekly pairing once a month! Literally MY FAVE thing.

Minus two stars for rude staff. Seemingly chaotic as to what station to go pick up items. Bagels come from the kitchen window quiches come from the cash register coffees come from cash register and espresso drinks take 20 minutes and come from the espresso bar. There really is zero sense of urgency from the baristas which is annoying because not all of us live the life of Riley and can afford to waste the entire day hanging out at the coffee shop. Less than pleasant staff, really no accommodation to help the customer or deliver items, just rude instruction on where to go fetch everything. Probably won’t make it back here.

Great space serving stellar coffee and with tons of comfy seating. Great creative drinks and I love the blueberry thyme muffin they had.

One of the best coffee shops I’ve been to in Chicago. These ppl take the coffee shop experience to another level. Nice alternative to commercial chain coffee shops. Can’t wait to go back and try some of there pastries.

I liked this shop, even before the expansion, because of the great coffee and the ample seating. After 7 years, I find myself struggling to continue to make it part of my regular routine, since exchanges with staff can definitely be enough to make you want to take your $ 6 coffee to go and forget you ever went in.
Pros:
Really great quality coffees and teas
Excellent variety and selection of beverages
Spacious and conveniently arranged seating
Cons:
Shockingly pushy and rude men at the front of the house (It’s every Monday now and it’s a real bummer.)
Pricey

At the recommendation of someone I’m following on Instagram, I decided to try out Metropolis. The hipster vibe is very much 2010, but the coffee is fantastic. I got the ginger coffee brewed with Kenyan Weithag as a pour-​over. I liked it a lot. The coffeehouse is a nice size and seems to pack quickly. I will go for takeaway in the future.

This coffee shop feels like a nice quaint local establishment, with lots of great options of good coffee. We each had something different, and each was done with a lot of love and artistry. It’s a pleasant change from the normal Starbucks that we normally get.
The Green tea latte was definitely a highlight. Obviously it doesn’t have as much caffeine… but it was superb.

Damn. The stereotype about Japanese «salarymen» working late into the Tokyo night must be true, if the Kyoto-​style, cold-​brew iced coffee having a groovin’ house party on my tongue right now is any indication. This stuff is good and strong, good AND strong – all three combinations.
I don’t know what’s with the folks in Kyoto, though. I once travelled there, and it was a mellow city with a rich history and a relatively slow pace of life, at least compared to the major cities of Japan. Maybe they are like the drug dealers that source & sell the stuff, but have a rule not to use the stuff. They just ship it to shaking addicts in Tokyo and beyond.
I’m not up this way too often, but Metropolis has been on my 5-​star café list since the first time I set tongue on it, about the time that it opened. The coffee is good, and I especially appreciate the ambience: the big couches and small and group tables; the multiple rooms, both quiet and with music; and the diversity of people here: a many-​bean salad of ethnicities and earnings, students and salary-(wo)men, the young and the still-​youthful, paper– and pixel-​lovers, the engrossed and en-​gossiped, those alone and accompanied… Stop me if I’m boring and belaboring you.
The counter staff has always been friendly to me, and they’ve always had a sense of humor in this oh-​so-​serious world of coffee, where they clearly know beans about beans. When I’ve seen Jeff, the owner, he’s regaled me with stories of his trips to Brazil and the large stacks of sacks of coffee we were standing by, and about the virtues of making espresso with a not-​so-​dark roasted bean.
While I wish they were closer to my abode, I’m glad that they’re not, because this place is one-​of-​a-​kind.

This coffee shop is quaint and has really good coffee. They offer a few pies and quiches that are also delicious. I ordered the green tea latte here and it was slightly foamy on the top with the smooth feel in the middle I like.
Added bonuses:
1. There’s currently a deal on Groupon here.
2. If you buy coffee here often, they have a deal where the 8^th (?) coffee or so is free. I’ve only seen others use this as I haven’t done it myself.

Of all the local roasts, Metropolis is by far the best coffee in town, and perhaps the best coffee period. It is brewed in such a way as you can really taste all the various flavors which almost seem to be translated in to «tones». They all complement each other and give a really full flavor. I buy them by the pound for my espresso machine.
The café is awesome. The bakery is incredible. I had the Dutch apple pie made with sour cream. Yuh-​Ummmm! So incredibly rich. I don’t get in the area very often, because I live downtown, but I try to detour my way over to Edgewater so I can pick up coffee, and enjoy the atmosphere.
The coffee is spectacular.

Thank you Jennifer Greenburg and Melissa Sands for recommending this spot!
The cold brewed Kyoto style coffee is wonderful. Plenty of seating. We joined the coffee club.

A perfect balance between being rundown/​shitty and cool. Whoever put this place together was clever — minimal art on the walls (much of which is by local artists and for sale), a large space to utilize, and some pretty good coffee. I enjoy coming here for these reasons.
Understandably, every time I come here it’s pretty packed. The crowd seems to be mostly students and friends hanging out. Be prepared to get overwhelmed by the amount of hipsters that are within a 20 foot radius of where you’re sitting. Whatever, though, they don’t bother me.
As far as drinks go, I have tried their iced chai, regular coffee, and Italian soda. All were good. They don’t carry almond milk, sadly, but they do offer hemp milk for those who don’t do dairy or soy.
Parking is plentiful. Out front is regular paid parking. Further down the street, in the residential areas, there’s free parking (just a short walk away), and the company provides a small lot next door for customers (but good luck finding parking there).
I am a big fan of coffee shops and the environment they provide when I’m studying for school. At the moment, I’m taking a break from a 20 page paper that’s due in… oh…two weeks (only 16 more pages to go!). Places like Metropolis provide just the right amount of human contact for people like me who don’t like working in total silence.
I’ll definitely be coming here for a long time to come.

If Metropolis exchanged places with Starbucks and there were zillions of MCC’s and 1 Starbucks, I would be okay with that. This perspective is coming from a Starbucks devotee. There is something special about Metropolis. From the attention to detail of every single drink creation to the carefully selected espresso, coffee beans, tea leaves, unique sodas; there’s something refreshing, aromatic, caffeinated and simply divine, for everyone to quench their thirst or merely wake up.
Metropolis has the competition in the bag as far as quality, delicious tasting baked goods. Some are homemade, others are brought in from a bakery — all are simply delicious and worth every caloric bite! Several months ago, they advertised on Craigslist that that they were giving away free coffee bags. I got a bunch of these cool cloth bags — in fact, several of them. Not because I had an immediate use for coffee bags, but because I wanted the aroma of Metropolis in my house and I do want to find an art project where I can use the most interesting coffee bags.

I took the family on a walk around Edgewater, and I knew I wanted to stop in here for a snack before we headed home. While I was there, I figured I’d get some iced coffee too.
I can’t tell you much about the Kyoto process, but I can say that it makes some fine iced coffee, one I’m very happy to drink black (okay, with a little bit of simple syrup). It’s strong, definitely bold but not that bitter.
We also had a blueberry crumble bar and a piece of apple cherry pie. The bar, which is made in-​house, crumbled nicely and wasn’t overly sweet. The blueberries were fresh, and the texture was excellent.
The pie was even better, though I wish I knew which bakery it came from. The crust was flaky but sturdy all the way through, from the bottom of the crust out to the edges. There was an ample amount of fruit, and the pie topping reminded me of a great brown sugar crumble. I think a piece of pie runs $ 4.50… it’s definitely worth it.
A coffee house like this deserves to be well trafficked. There’s many nooks and crannies for people to sit, and it’s nice and quiet on the inside. I wish I had one of these closer to home!

I recommend this place for people who want to get some serious work done!
First of all, there are enough outlets for your laptops, tablets, and cellular devices. Although chances are that you may be sitting with some working strangers diagonally across you at a large table, you will still have your own privacy. Clientele is consisted of college students (Loyola), working professionals, and career Unilocalers like myself. The entire place is comfortable to sit for a considerable amount of time. Toward the back of the coffee shop, there is a couple of cozy sofas with a small coffee table just in case you want to snuggle.
Well, it’s a coffee shop. I know the coffee has to be good, correct? I had the 12 oz. chai and green tea latte. Even though the chai wasn’t the best I’ve had (Bridgeport Coffee Company is more superior in the chai category), I couldn’t really complain because it was still quite good. I’m fond of the green tea latte though. I liked it that it was savory, but not at all cloying. The prices of the coffee are pretty reasonable. You can get a cup of regular for a little over $ 2. Mr. SB and Miss DD: retreat your footprints in Chicago; your coffee is subpar.
They didn’t require the password for the free wifi, and I was able to log on it after registering with an e-​mail address. They do have some profound, philosophical books for you to peruse, but I will pass because I’ve had my life figured out.
It’s located two (2)-minute walking distance to the CTA Granville Red line station. The surroundings seem to be safe because the Loyola dormitories are in proximity. I saw the Chicago Police and the Campus Patrol Unit constantly going around to watch suspicious activities.