Daily routines that keep us locked in a loop of home and work can feel mundane, and in a social media–dominated world, it’s easy to forget that not every interaction has to be through a screen. Thankfully, Houston chefs and baristas are giving residents another option to connect with others face-to-face.

Rather than serving solely as a space for remote work and fueling up on caffeine, coffee shops in Houston are going beyond the beans, with cocktails, special events, expanded food menus, THC offerings, and even daytime raves. Chefs say the goal is to create another place for people to connect and feel part of the community. 

“What we’re trying to create at Third Place is just a third place,” chef Henry Lu says of the aptly named coffee shop he shares with fellow Top Chef alum Evelyn Garcia. “It’s not work, and it’s not home. It’s somewhere you can come hang out [to] get things done or hang out with friends.” 

The coffee shop is situated inside Lu and Garcia’s Heights restaurant, Jun. At night, the space brims with New American cuisine with Salvadoran, Mexican, and Southeast Asian influences. By morning, it’s Third Place: a café brimming with flirty takes on iced matcha and other caffeinated drinks, plus homemade pastries. The space also doubles (well, triples) as the home base for Garcia and Lu’s chef residency program. Culinary artists, including James Beard semifinalist Suu Khin of Burmalicious, Top Chef winner Tristen Epps, and Nina Fonte of Aleng Nina’s, have used the restaurant’s kitchen to host daytime pop-ups, where they serve limited-edition dishes that diners can score during lunch hours.

The idea for Third Place came after a series of workshops that Lu and Garcia hosted with local artists and makers. Lu says they were inspired to centralize the idea, creating an anchor that could serve as a permanent home for more events. In April, the duo repurposed Jūn’s space and kitchen, opening it up to area chefs and other creatives. Since then, they’ve hosted various events, including art shows, flower workshops, pottery classes, and even run clubs. This newer addition to Jun has also allowed Garcia to have a little more fun. She and Lu often exercise their creativity by experimenting with different pastries, which have yielded new additions like Salvi cheese bread, savory brisket puffs served with mole negro and salsa verde, and bo lo bao—pineapple buns loaded with carnitas. 

Other coffee shops have similarly become multifaceted spaces. Irving Chavez, owner of Eden Plant Co. in Post Houston, says he has always been intrigued by coffee shops and their ability to bring together people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. He and his family started selling plants from their backyard before expanding to a shop in Second Ward, which also served coffee and hosted events. With the opportunity to open an outpost in Post Houston, they relocated their business to Post’s ground floor, capitalizing on the synergy between coffee and plants. Now, Eden Plant Co. is the hub of connection that Chavez dreamed of. 

The area, filled with lush greenery, sells caffeinated drinks and plants, which double as the decor, and plays host to fun celebrations that build community and strengthen relationships with customers, Irving says. There’s live music during its weekly Jazz in the Jungle event, Sip and Plant sessions where attendees create art among the leaves, as well as pilates classes and glass terrarium workshops. 

Las Perras Café opened in Eden Plant Co.’s former East End space this year, but has already made waves through its activism as it strives to foster neighborly bonds. After years in the hospitality industry, owner Andrea Arana was ready to be her own boss. With a growing passion for coffee and a determination to learn everything she could about roasting and brewing, Arana launched Las Perras Café, which now pours up coffee drinks named after influential women activists. Coffee lovers can also try out its pastries and newly added antojitos (snack) menu. Or, diners can opt for Latin Caribbean cuisine from the onsite food truck Flor Y Miel, which cooks up popular plates like pica pollo bowls with chicken, white rice, beans, and cabbage salad; El Fuerte, pepper steak served with yellow rice and peas and sweet plantains; and Yuca frits with garlic chimichurri sauce and pickled onion.  

More than that, though, Arana’s mission for Las Perras Café is to provide a haven for women of color while bringing the Latin community together. Determined to use her platform for good during a time when the country is politically charged, Arana has hosted Know Your Rights immigration workshops and local marches on No Kings Day and Chicano Unity Day. Las Perras has held lighthearted events, too, such as coffee and Perreo Latin dance parties, open mic nights, minicake workshops, and pop-ups showcasing Latina-owned small businesses. “If I can do two things at once—marry my activism with my love for coffee and hospitality—it’s just a dream come true,” Arana says.

Meanwhile, over in Sawyer Yards is Maven Coffee + Cocktails, a company that also has outposts in Daikin Park, the Toyota Center, and the Thompson Hotel. Its Heights area location serves as a coffee and cocktail-focused restaurant, and often holds events with hopes of integrating itself into the neighborhood. “It just made sense to try really make it for the neighborhood,” Rex Hospitality president Nina Quincy says. “[To] make it so that everybody can start to get to know each other, get to know the neighbors, get to know the people that come, and hang out there.” 

With a daily menu of breakfast tacos, sandwiches, avocado toast, pastries, coffee drinks, and cocktails, Maven doubles as a coffee shop and full-service restaurant during the day. But the bistro menu tends to get the most love in the evenings. It features Caesar cups that can be eaten with your hands, spicy rigatoni pasta, and oysters on the half-shell, accompanied by a refreshing gremolata. Weekly specials and events keep diners engaged, with Taco Tuesdays accompanied by Singo (singing and bingo), Wednesday steak nights, Thursday burger and beer specials, and trivia nights on Fridays. 

Henry Lu says he hopes to open more “third” places to foster community and camaraderie in person, which Quincy says is imperative following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people were forced to communicate through screens. Today, restaurants and, more importantly, coffee shops, are here to remind Houstonians of the importance of human interaction and having another place that feels comfortable. “When you feel that connection with people outside of your general space, it makes the world seem kind of friendlier,” she says.