Coffee in the Financial District: Where to Get a Good Cup Near John Street
By 17John ·
Quick answer
For the best coffee in the Financial District, walk to Black Fox Coffee at 70 Pine Street, a specialty roaster open 7am to 5pm on weekdays and 8am to 4pm on weekends. Closer to us on John Street, Coffee Project New York at 135 John and Suited at 45 John both do a solid espresso within three minutes of our door, and Voyager Espresso is tucked inside the Fulton Street subway station if you want coffee on your way to the train. Down here most cafés keep office hours, so check before you head out on a Sunday morning.
Most of the good coffee down here is a five-minute walk or less from John Street. · Photo by Matheus Bertelli on Pexels
Coffee is the one thing guests ask us about before they've even put their bags down. Good news: the Financial District has more specialty coffee than it did five years ago, and the best of it is within a ten-minute walk of 17 John Street.
Two things worth knowing before you go looking. First, a lot of cafés down here were built for office workers, which means early openings, early closings, and thinner weekend hours. If you're up at 7am on a Tuesday you'll have your pick. If you're up at 9am on a Sunday, check the hours first. Second, John Street itself is a decent coffee block, so you may not need to walk far at all.
If you'd rather make it yourself, your suite has a full kitchen, and the markets we list in our grocery guide sell beans a few minutes from the door. Plenty of guests staying a week or a month just brew at home and save the walk for the afternoon.
Here's the short list.
Quick picks
Best cup overall: Black Fox Coffee, 70 Pine Street
Closest to our door: Coffee Project New York, 135 John Street, and Suited at 45 John Street
Coffee on the way to the train: Voyager Espresso, inside the Fulton Street station
Cheapest option: your own kitchen, with beans from the market
Black Fox Coffee Co.
· About an 8-minute walk from 17 John Street · $$
This is the one we recommend first. Black Fox is a specialty coffee shop and roaster in the base of 70 Pine Street, one of the better-looking towers in the neighborhood, and they rotate guest roasters alongside their own coffee. It's a big room with real seating, so it works if you want to sit with a laptop for an hour rather than drink standing up. Hours run 7am to 5pm Monday through Friday and 8am to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday, which makes it one of the more reliable weekend options in FiDi. Go up to 70 Pine for the coffee in the morning and come back for the rooftop bar on the 64th floor at night.
Coffee Project New York
· About a 3-minute walk, same street · $$
Same street as us, a few blocks east toward the Seaport. Coffee Project is a small local chain that takes its espresso seriously and is a fair bit calmer than the chain cafés closer to Broadway. This is the stop we point people to when they want something good without a detour: you can grab a cup here and be walking along the East River at Pier 17 five minutes later.
Suited
· About a 2-minute walk · $$
The closest good coffee to our front door, half a block east on John. Small, quick, aimed at the morning rush, and fine for a takeaway flat white on the way to a meeting on Wall Street. Not a place to camp out for two hours with a laptop. If you're heading out early and don't want to think about it, this is the default.
Voyager Espresso
· About a 4-minute walk · $
Yes, a coffee bar inside the subway. Voyager is built into the Fulton Street station, which sounds grim and isn't: it's a tidy little space with a spaceship theme and better espresso than most street-level shops. The practical case for it is obvious, since Fulton Street is where the A, C, J, Z, 2, 3, 4 and 5 all meet. Coffee, turnstile, train, done. Tricky to find the first time, so look for it on the mezzanine level rather than the platform.
Your kitchen at 17 John
· None · Cost of beans
Not a cop-out. Every suite here has a full kitchen, and on a long stay the morning routine at home is half the reason people book an apartment-style place instead of a hotel room. Pick up beans and milk at one of the markets within a five-minute walk, and take the first cup up to the rooftop terrace before the neighborhood wakes up. Weekend mornings in the Financial District are quiet, which is exactly when that's worth doing.
