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Now Roasting: Yirgacheffe Konga, Ethiopia — light, jasmine, bergamot

Where volcanic fire meets slow-roasted craft.

Lava Café is an independent third-wave roaster and neighborhood café. Single-origin beans roasted in-house on a 12kg Loring, paired with a chef-driven all-day menu — so your morning ritual feels less like a transaction and more like a small daily ceremony.

Reserve Your Table Order Pickup
  • 4 locationsPortland & Seattle
  • 4.8★11,400+ reviews
  • Est. 2014Central Eastside, Portland
A barista slowly pouring milk into a cup of single-origin coffee at Lava Café

Today at Lava Café

A small daily dispatch from the roastery and the kitchen.

Three single-origin roasts on the bar right now, paired with three signatures from chef Mateo Vargas's all-day menu. Pre-order pickup, or come in and let us pull you a chair.

Whole beans of a single-origin roast tipped from a paper bag

Espresso · Light

Yirgacheffe Konga, Ethiopia

Jasmine, white peach, bergamot. Direct-trade from the Konga washing station, roasted 48 hours ago on our 12kg Loring.

Process
Washed
Roast
Light
Pairing
Almond croissant
A pour-over dripper slowly brewing a single-origin coffee

Filter · Medium

Huila San Agustín, Colombia

Red apple, brown sugar, milk chocolate. From our 14 direct-trade partner farms, brewed never more than 72 hours off-roast.

Process
Honey
Roast
Medium
Pairing
Avocado toast
A chocolate olive oil cake served with a cortado

Filter · Medium-Dark

Sumatra Mandheling, Indonesia

Cedar, dark cocoa, brown spice. Earthy and grounding — our house drip for the long, slow mornings.

Process
Wet-hulled
Roast
Med-Dark
Pairing
Chocolate olive oil cake
See the full menu
A roaster inspecting freshly roasted beans beside a Loring Smart Roaster inside the Lava Café cellar
Inside our volcanic-stone cellar on SE Stark.

The Roastery

Roasted on-site. Served within 72 hours. Never older.

Every bean that lands in your cup started its week on our 12kg Loring Smart Roaster in the Central Eastside cellar. From green to brewed, the window is short on purpose — we cup every batch, log every roast curve, and pull the shots ourselves before the bag ever meets the bar.

It's the difference a third-wave roaster makes, and the reason our average wait at the bar is under four minutes — even at the morning rush.

Meet our 14 direct-trade farms

Four reasons your morning ritual belongs here

Considered details, the kind that quietly make a café yours.

  1. 01

    Under four minutes, even at peak.

    Verified across 38,200 transactions in our 2023 customer-flow study. Your seat is waiting, not your latte cooling on the counter.

  2. 02

    Plant milk, priced like dairy.

    Oat, almond, soy, and coconut — all priced identically to whole milk, a policy we've held since opening day in 2014.

  3. 03

    90 minutes free parking, validated.

    At our flagship on SE Stark — uncommon for the neighborhood, and one less thing to think about on a Tuesday morning.

  4. 04

    Mobile-order pickup, 99.2% accurate.

    Across 210,000+ orders in the last 24 months. Order on the train, walk in, walk out — your drink is right where it should be.

Reserve Your Table

By the numbers — quietly, since 2014

1.8M cups roasted & served across all four cafés in 2024
4.8★ average Google rating across 11,400+ reviews
3× Roast Magazine "Best Specialty Coffee Shop — Pacific Northwest" (2019, 2022, 2024)
99.2% mobile-order pickup accuracy across 210,000+ orders

Featured in Bon Appétit's America's Best New Coffee Shops 2015 and Food & Wine's Coffee Bars Worth Flying For (2021).

We never wanted Lava to feel like a transaction. We wanted it to feel like the first quiet moment of your day — a chair pulled up, a cup set down, someone who knows your order. Coffee is the smallest daily ceremony most of us still keep.
Ana Reyes & Mateo Vargas Co-founders, Lava Café · Portland, 2014

Come in for a morning, or let us come to you — subscribe to the weekly roast.