Coffee Hot Spots
Austin's 5 best coffee trailers for your caffeine fix
Austin is one caffeinated metropolis: We have our pick of countless coffee shops for every taste, whether we like sipping on a cold brew, a latte infused with scrumptious syrup, or just a plain, black cup o' Joe.
The coffee culture is huge and continuously booming, so much so that over the past two years more and more baristas are opening coffee trailers instead of brick and mortars. We scoured the city and compiled a list of new discoveries and old favorites for your caffeine fix.
Flitch Coffee
641 Tillery St.
Operating out of a renovated vintage Spartan trailer a hop, skip, and jump away from East Austin Succulents, Flitch Coffee opened its doors in April of this year. Founder Erica Foster previously worked at Wright Bros. Brew and Brew and came up with the name through her fiance’s business, Hatch Workshop (located next to Flitch). Flitches are slabs of wood, cut from logs and turned into useable materials; they can be seen inside Foster’s trailer. Flitch uses Texas roaster Evocation from Amarillo and Kickapoo from the Midwest. The maple latte is excellent and the perfect concoction to get us ready for fall.
Sister Coffee
1223 Rosewood Ave.
Amanda Farris began working with coffee at 14 but wasn’t serious about it until 10 years later when she started working at Ritual Roasters in San Francisco. Although not the founder of Sister Coffee, she acquired the business from a friend and reopened the trailer at the beginning of the year. The name resonated with Farris. To her, it offered the right amount of playfulness and seriousness. Note: If you order one of the hot decadent drinks, notice the branding! Sister rotates roasters and features Ritual, Avoca from Fort Worth, and local roaster Barrett’s. Currently, Sister’s seasonal drink is a lavender latte with syrup made by employee Katie Kubiak.
Beware Coffee
2908 Fruth St.
What started out as a temporary move to the Lone Star State turned permanent when baristas Natasha and Braxton (the two sweetest coffee shop owners in Austin) decided to dabble in the Austin coffee and food truck scene and Beware Coffee was born. The pair met while working at a coffee shop in Seattle. Their first location was on 30th Street, but they soon moved to a permanent position right outside Spider House Cafe. Going back to their Pacific Northwest roots, Beware uses Herkimer Coffee beans. The menu is extremely innovative, using substances such as dandelion root and coconut oil and the Aeropress brewing method.
Patika Coffee
West Fourth Street
Founders Andy Wigginton and Nick Krupa traded working in the software business for the coffee-making business. Patika opened its trailer in 2010, when the bean scene in Austin was essentially non-existent. Patika serves up a traditional menu using Cuvee for most of the brews. Patika also uses local roaster Wild Gift and Sightglass and De La Paz from San Francisco. The vanilla latte has the perfect syrup-to-coffee ratio. Wigginton and Krupa opened Patika Wine and Coffee on South Lamar almost a year ago, and the shop offers a pastry program, including French toast muffins and cinnamon crunch breakfast cake.
Lucky Lab Coffee
Unlike the other trailers featured on our list, Lucky Lab does not have a permanent spot, instead it has a corporate delivery route. Lucky Lab has catered numerous Austin powerhouse events such as South by Southwest, Austin Film Festival, and Trail of Lights. Husband-and-wife duo Ron Lunan and Courtney Hutton specialize in handmade syrups and have a creative latte menu (using Third Coast beans) with whimsical drinks such as burnt orange with vanilla and rosemary honey. They have five dogs, and if the name of their company isn’t enough proof of their puppy love, they donate 50 percent of their tips to a different dog charity every season.
Could sit in this airy shop all day.Photo by Chad Wadsworth
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