Intelligentsia Coffee Opens in Downtown Boston
Post Office Square is home to the roaster's second Boston-area "coffeebar."
Intelligentsia / Photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid via Flickr / Creative Commons
The newest café in the Financial District is a familiar one to coffee lovers. Chicago roasting company Intelligentsia unveils its second local “coffeebar” this Friday in Post Office Square.
Intelligentsia was the nation’s direct-trade coffee pioneer when it launched in Chicago in 1995. Sourcing beans from 15 countries North, Central, and South America and North Africa, Intelligentsia roasts and brews its single-origin coffees and blends to retain and highlight their natural flavors. The coffeebars, as they call them, also sell the company’s line Kilogram Teas.
The Post Office Square location, on the ground floor of the State Street Bank building on Franklin Street, takes inspiration from “great hotel and lobby bars,” per today’s press release. Gensler Architects used communal seating around the marble bar, and high-top tables to create an intimate, comfortable place to hang out or have a meeting, and also built an efficient front line to expedite service for the Financial District crowd. Brass and leather furnishings complement the existing lobby design, and there is also outdoor seating.
Intelligentsia debuted in Greater Boston last summer with a coffeebar and training center in Watertown. It has 10 additional locations in Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles, with expansion plans in the works. It also sells its coffees, including Black Cat Espresso, to cafés including to Somerville sister spots Diesel, Bloc, and Forge.
Intelligentsia opens Friday, Aug. 17, at 6:30 a.m. It serves the downtown crowd weekdays from 6:30 a.m.-6 p.m., and Saturdays from 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m. It is closed on Sundays.
225 Franklin St., Boston, intelligentsiacoffee.com.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the opening date. Intelligentsia opens to the public on Friday.
