The East Nashville coffee scene runs on a collection of independent shops that have been here long enough to develop actual followings, not coffee-flavored amenity spaces in apartment developments. The question of which has the best local roast has a legitimate answer, though it depends on what you mean by “local roast.”
Bongo Java East
The East Nashville outpost of Nashville’s oldest independent coffee roaster, which opened its original location in 1993. Bongo Java roasts its own coffee under the Bongo Java brand and has been doing so for longer than most of East Nashville’s current residents have been alive. The East location on Woodland Street in Five Points functions as a neighborhood living room: deep couches, mismatched furniture, a back patio, and a crowd that mixes remote workers with musicians killing time between sessions. If “best local roast” means the beans were roasted by a Nashville institution with decades of practice, Bongo Java is the answer.
The roast profile leans toward accessibility rather than specialty-coffee precision: medium roasts that are approachable and consistent. If you want something more adventurous, keep reading.
Dose Coffee and Tea
Located in Inglewood’s Riverside Village, Dose is what happens when a coffee shop is built for the people who actually live in the neighborhood rather than for the people passing through. The selection of single-origin and locally sourced beans is taken seriously. The shop has earned a loyal following from Inglewood residents precisely because it doesn’t feel like a coffee concept, it feels like a coffee shop. If you’re venturing to the outer reaches of East Nashville or Inglewood for any other reason, Dose is the stop.
Sky Blue Cafe
700 Fatherland St. A staple in the Historic Edgefield area since 2010. Open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sky Blue is a breakfast-and-coffee operation with custom coffee blends alongside high-quality tea, fresh juices, an elderberry shot, and kombucha. The coffee program is not the most elaborate in the neighborhood, but Sky Blue has a consistency and a community orientation that makes it the kind of place people return to every morning rather than treating as an occasion.
The Practical Answer
Bongo Java East serves the best local roast in the traditional sense: beans sourced, roasted, and distributed by a Nashville-based roaster with thirty years of practice. For specialty coffee enthusiasts who care about specific origins, processing methods, and roast precision, the East Nashville options are more limited than the broader Nashville coffee scene. The city’s most ambitious specialty roasters, operations like Crema Coffee and Nashville Coffee Roasting, are more concentrated in Midtown and other neighborhoods.
What East Nashville has in abundance is coffee shops that feel like the neighborhoods they’re in: Bongo Java East on the main Five Points strip, Dose Coffee tucked into a Riverside Village storefront, Sky Blue anchoring the Fatherland Street corridor. None of them are trying to be a showcase for technique. They’re places to sit for two hours without feeling like you’re being asked to leave.
For the Remote Worker
If you’re working from a coffee shop in East Nashville, Bongo Java East has the most reliable wifi, the most seating, and a patio. Sky Blue doesn’t accommodate the long-haul work session in the same way given its 2 p.m. closing time. Dose is smaller and fills up with regulars on weekend mornings.
Sources
- Seeing Tennessee, A Local’s Guide to East Nashville (February 2024): https://seeingtennessee.com/east-nashville-guide/
- FranklinIs, A Local’s Guide to Coolest Spots in East Nashville: https://franklinis.com/a-locals-guide-to-the-coolest-spots-in-east-nashville-tennessee/
- The Cauble Group, Neighborhood Guide to East Nashville: https://www.tylercauble.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-east-nashville
- Booking.com, 5 Points Retreat listing (nearby venues): https://www.booking.com/hotel/us/5-points-retreat-in-east-nashville-walk-to-restaurants-bars-and-music.html