Tricity coffee scene

The first proper roastery, NieCzapla, opened in Gdańsk in 2017. Before that, the whole region had essentially zero third-wave coffee. Now there are well over 30 dedicated specialty spots across the three cities, local roasters winning national championships, and a community that feels more like a family reunion than an industry. What happened here happened fast, and it happened differently from other Polish cities.

What makes it different

The whole thing was built by obsessives — baristas who competed internationally, couples who quit corporate jobs, a vegan baker who spent five years looking for the right storefront. There’s almost no chain presence. Green Caffè Nero only showed up in mid-2025, eight years after entering other Polish cities. The scene was already mature by then. What you get instead is a network of places where the owner is usually the one pulling your shot, and they genuinely care whether you liked it.

Some coffee stories

NieCzapla (the name translates roughly to “Not a Heron”) roasts on-site at Wajdeloty 3. They follow the SCA 100-point grading scale and let you taste before you buy. They were first, and they set the standard.
Fukafe opened in 2015 as a fully vegan café back when that was a gamble. Their head barista, Olo, competed in Belgian and Polish Aeropress Championships and regularly invites international guest baristas for sessions — including Evgeni Pinchukov, the Belarusian champion. It’s also the unofficial living room of Tricity’s coffee community. As Olo puts it: “It’s like a coffee family - you’re most likely to meet your friends in one of those two places.”
Publiczna sits inside a former Royal Rifle Factory on Łąkowa Street — a building that’s been, in chronological order, a Prussian arms factory, a Nazi Party headquarters, and a tobacco warehouse. Now it’s a tiny specialty café serving Kaizen-roasted coffee and focaccia from their sibling kitchen next door. The dissonance between the building’s past and what it is now is part of the charm.
Drukarnia on Mariacka Street is run by Adam and Monika Świerżewski — he’s a graphic designer and fine arts lecturer, she’s an artist. They pull shots on a La Marzocco Linea and brew Chemex, V60, Aeropress, and syphon. They rotate beans from roasters across Europe: Concept, Kalve, Casino Mocca, Doubleshot. It’s an art gallery that happens to make excellent coffee.

What changed in 2025–2026

Yard.Cafe on Dokowa Street topped trojmiasto.pl’s 2025 ranking of the best cafés in Tricity — a sign that the post-industrial waterfront area is pulling gravity away from the Old Town.
Echo opened on Świętojańska in Gdynia, focused on process-heavy coffees: natural Ethiopians, lactic fermentations. It’s built for people who want to talk about what’s in their cup, not just drink it.
Flow Cafe in Gdynia operates only Friday through Monday, serves Copenhagen-style breakfasts alongside specialty coffee and natural wine. Limited hours as a business model. It works because people plan around it.
Las, which started in Sopot as a health-focused café with gluten-free and sugar-free baking, expanded to Gdańsk’s Oliwa district — set inside an old house near the Olivia Star tower. It’s become one of the most photographed cafés in the region, and the coffee is genuinely good, not just pretty.

Quick Facts

~9 years of history. NieCzapla opened 2017, Fukafe 2015 (as vegan café with specialty coffee)
Local roasters are NieCzapla, Fat Duck Coffee Roasters, Kawana, Gdańska Palarnia Kawy
28+ cafés listed on European Coffee Trip in Gdańsk alone

Why it stays interesting

Here, you’ve got a vegan bakery next to a graphic design studio next to a flower shop, all serving excellent coffee in completely different ways. The community is small enough that baristas know each other, compete together, guest-brew at each other’s places. Gdynia’s Tłok was opened by a couple who moved from Poznań specifically because they saw that Tricity had no specialty coffee and thought: we can fix that. That DIY energy is still the engine. No one’s here because it’s trendy. They’re here because they’re obsessed with coffee and this was the place that let them build something from scratch.