A Ranking of Dayton Area Coffee Shops

I've been working from home for almost a year now, so it's essential for me to leave my house every once in a while and be around other people. The perfect solution to this is coffee shops. Dayton has a decent amount of options, so a couple of months ago I decided to try to visit all of them at least once. Now, to be clear, I'm no coffee expert but I have been hanging out at coffee shops since I was in high school. That's going on 10 years now (which is a little terrifying to think about). Besides, it's really not about the coffee. I will pretty much drink anything (low standards) but when I'm coming to a coffee shop to get work done, it's more the atmosphere and how easy it is to actually do that. Also, the price is important to me as well. What can I say--I'm cheap.

Let's start off strong with a place I forget to take a picture of: Ghostlight's midtown location. They have good coffee, a nice environment, and friendly staff, but as far as I could tell, you had to ASK for the wifi password. This is the biggest sin a coffee shop can commit, in my opinion. If you sell coffee, people are going to come with their laptops. Furthermore, outlets were hard to find in this place; another obstacle to getting work done. So I had to move seats, and being the shy person I am I could only do tasks that didn't require wifi. It's also on the expensive side: $5.45 plus a tip for a small latte.

Overall rating: 3/5.

Next up: Reza's Roast.

I used to be able to walk to Reza's from my old apartment, so I would go here a lot. The interior is actually pretty beautiful with big windows and hardwood floors. It is one of the more expensive places on this list--that being said, they are the only coffee shop I've been that has unlimited drip coffee for something like $3. So you can stay there as long as you want and fill up your mug as many time as you want. However, this usually results in me drinking way too much coffee, so I got another latte. I got oat milk which was an extra dollar. When you pay with card their tip options are not 15% or 20%, but $1 or $2, so I ended up paying like $7 for my coffee, and that really soured the whole experience.

Overall rating: 2/5.

Pettibone Coffee

I believe this is the most recently-opened shop on this list, and it's in a rather unusual location in Fairborn. It's on Woodman Ave and there definitely aren't any other independent coffee shops around for miles. In fact, it's surrounded by fast food restaurants. While the location is more inconvenient for me, good for Fairborn for now having some culture with this place. I love the layout here. The "barista station" (I don't know what else to call it) is in the center of the building, and the seating surrounds it, so it has a huge open floor plan. They also brew their own coffee. I got their whiskey caramel latte (it's not alcoholic; it just has whiskey flavor) which is delicious.

Overall rating: 4/5

Starbucks

I know, I know, Starbucks shouldn't be on this list because I said Dayton coffee shops, and Starbucks are obviously everywhere. Let me explain: this day I attempted to go to Tastefully Roasted, which if further up the street from this Starbucks location. But when I walked in the front door, it was so crowded there was not a single place to sit, and there was another crowd of UD students in line. I walked right out the back door and went to Starbucks instead. I tried two of their seasonal items: an Apple Crisp Macchiato and a pumpkin cream cheese muffin. The coffee was pretty bad, the muffin was pretty good, and the staff was clearly annoyed (I mean, I can't blame them, but still). Overall rating: 1/5.

Ghostlight (South Park location)

This Ghostlight location is usually really crowded so I haven't been there much in recent years. This time I went in the late morning on a weekday, and it was wonderfully mostly empty. I got a reasonably-priced Americano and enjoyed these quintessential Dayton views. I'm a little biased towards this place as it's one of the first coffee shops I spent any time in, but I still love it.

Overall rating: 5/5

Wholly Grounds

Wholly Grounds is close to Ghostlight and has a very similar atmosphere (as you can see, they both have Edison bulbs) and is one of the more reasonably priced places on this list. It usually isn't crowded, has nice staff, lots of non-espresso options if you don't want to get too jittery, AND the wifi password is written on a chalkboard. Thank god.

Overall rating: 4/5

What is your favorite coffee shop?