American spice shops began as immigrant groceries; the ones on this plate never changed their trade. Kalustyan's grinds specialty food, spices, grains, teas behind one Manhattan storefront. The Spice House traces its start to Bill and Ruth Penzey hand-blending spices in 1957. Polcari's Coffee dates to Anthony Polcari, an Italian immigrant, opening the North End shop in 1932. Whole spices keep while ground ones fade; cumin should smell of fruit and earth rather than dust.
Anthony Polcari, an Italian immigrant, opened this North End shop in 1932, and the family still blends its coffee and scoops spices from bins and glass jars. Three generations later, Polcari's carries over 150 spices alongside coffee, nuts and Italian dry goods.
Best for In-house coffee blends since 1932
Polcari's Coffee traces to a single immigrant's arrival: Anthony Polcari, who came from Italy and opened the shop on Salem Street in 1932. His wife Rose and their children worked the counter alongside him, and the business passed down through the family — his son Ralph eventually took over operations, and today the shop is run by a proprietor named Bobby, described by regulars as someone who "makes you feel welcome" in the same spirit the shop has kept for over ninety years.
The North End location still scoops coffee, dried beans, nuts, spices and Italian dry goods from bins and glass jars rather than pre-packaged shelves, a presentation that has become as much a part of the shop's identity as what's actually in the jars. The inventory runs deep — well over 150 different spices, legumes, flour, grains, rice and extracts — alongside deli items, pasta and candy, making Polcari's less a coffee shop with extras than a full old-world pantry that happens to blend its own coffee in-house.
Open limited weekday and Saturday hours and closed Sundays, the shop has resisted the instinct to modernize its format even as the neighborhood around it has changed, keeping the bins-and-jars presentation that three generations of the Polcari family built the business on.
Charleston Coffee Exchange sells K-Cup pods and bagged whole-bean or ground coffee online, including flavored varieties like Pumpkin Spice, English Toffee, Salted Caramel, and Bourbon Pecan. It runs Coffee Club subscriptions and the E2M Kitchen Coffee line, a collaboration with E2M Fitness.
Alpine Touch blends and packs its all-purpose "Spice of the West" seasoning in Choteau, alongside barbecue rubs, pepper blends, and specialty mixes such as ginger-garlic and cherry-bourbon. The Montana-made line is sold with grinders, cutting boards, and gift boxes.
A Curry Hill landmark since 1944, Kalustyan's crams its Lexington Avenue shelves with spices, dried fruits, lentils, teas and hard-to-find ingredients from around the world. Chefs and home cooks shop in person or order the same rice, peppercorns and simmer sauces online.
La Colombe, "proudly roasted in Philadelphia," built its NYC cafés around the Draft Latte, its self-described "ridiculously frothy, coffee-forward" drink, now sold in seasonal versions like Pumpkin Spice and S'mores.
Best for Draft lattes and Rittenhouse-Square-rooted roasting in Manhattan's laptop-friendly cafes
La Colombe traces back to a friendship formed at a grunge concert in Seattle in the 1980s, between Todd Carmichael and JP Iberti, who bonded over a shared frustration with the quality of coffee available in the US at the time. That conversation eventually became a business: in 1994 the two opened their first La Colombe cafe in Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square, built around premium roasting rather than the diner-style coffee dominant in America before the third-wave shift. The company grew from that single Philadelphia cafe into roughly thirty cafes and a large wholesale account base nationwide, expanding into New York and other cities while keeping its roasting operation Philadelphia-based. Its most visible innovation came in 2016, when Carmichael introduced a canned draft latte -- nitro-style, poured cold -- that became the company's signature retail product and one of the more widely copied formats in the ready-to-drink coffee category since. In 2015, Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya bought a stake in the company, and Chobani later acquired La Colombe outright for roughly $900 million, one of the larger acquisitions in the American specialty coffee industry. The Manhattan cafes carry that history forward: draft lattes on tap, sourced and roasted under the same Philadelphia operation Carmichael and Iberti started three decades ago.
Founded by Matt Jamie in 2006, Bourbon Barrel Foods makes barrel-aged and smoked sauces, spices, and its signature Bluegrass Soy Sauce in Louisville, Kentucky. It runs a storefront with a tour and tasting experience on Story Avenue and sells more than a hundred artisan products through its online shop.
Best for Specialty-food, bourbon-smoked, soy-sauce
Bravado Spice makes small-batch hot sauces out of Houston, best known for pairing ghost and reaper peppers with miso in what it calls the world's first aka miso hot sauce. The company sells its bold, umami-leaning sauces and seasonings direct from its own site as well as area retailers.
Goode Co. has smoked brisket, sausage and ribs for Houston since 1977, still run by the founding family with a secret spice blend and scratch-made sauce. The original Kirby Drive smokehouse, with its wall of mounted deer heads and license plates, remains the flagship location.
A Dallas-area distillery on Ballard Avenue in downtown Wylie making grain-to-glass spirits led by its Straight Bourbon Whiskey. The bourbon carries notes of caramel, vanilla and dried fruit with a light spice.
A Cannery Row shop where visitors taste from more than seventy olive oils and balsamic vinegars before buying, with oils sourced from Tunisia and Australia and balsamics aged by the Solera method in Modena. It also carries specialty oils, spice blends and gift sets, available in store and online.
Best for Olive-oil, balsamic-vinegar, spices, specialty-food
On Historic Main Street since 2009, this Park City tasting room pours and bottles olive oils, balsamic vinegars and house-blended spices for cooks to sample before they buy. A refill program rewards returned bottles, and the full pantry is also available through the online shop.
Best for Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, gourmet food, spices
The Evergreen Gallery on Highway 74 represents more than 90 Colorado artists working in fused and blown glass, functional pottery, carved wood, kaleidoscopes, textiles, and original paintings. Its cases also hold the Evergreen Angel Jewelry Collection, whose sales support Mount Evans Home Health Care and Hospice.
Best for Colorado fine art, handmade glass, and pottery
Bill and Ruth Penzey began hand-blending spices in 1957, and the Old Town flagship still mixes seasonings in small batches, including blends named for Chicago neighborhoods. Jars of single-origin peppercorns, cinnamons, and curry mixes line the shelves of its shops in Chicago, Evanston, and Milwaukee.
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