We were incredibly honored to be named South Carolina's best coffee shop by Food & Wine Magazine this year!
We could not have gotten this recognition without our local roaster, Springbok Coffee, and the nearly 40 talented roasters from around the country we've have the pleasure of featuring so far. And, of course, nothing is possible without our amazing team, their passion for the craft of coffee, and the welcoming experience they help to create at Sightsee day after day.
We've included an excerpt from the brilliant article by David Landsel below, as well as the feature on Sightsee. Be sure to click here to read the full list - there are so many wonderful shops you'll want to check out on your travels!
The Best Coffee Shops in Every State
"And so, the perfect coffee shop—what, exactly, does that look like? Let's start with perfect coffee, or something like it; they will be brewing the best (and pulling the best shots) in the near, or not-so-near vicinity, this is exceptionally important. Aesthetics and environment are key, but not nearly as important—from Fargo, North Dakota, to the depths of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, one might safely say that we've now grasped modern coffee shop design. Truly great coffee, however—that's still incredibly hard to find.
While an in-house roasting program isn't essential, one of the most positive trends during the last two years is how many shops have gone this route, very often with exciting results; equally hopeful were the number of new (or improved) multi-roaster cafes, who source, optimally anyway, from a rotating list of top talent, either in their area, or from all over the world, and sometimes even both. A shop that didn't fall into either category would have had a lot harder time breaking through—no knock on any number of wonderful places I visited during my travels, but rather a statement of just how high the bar has lately been raised. I'm happy to tell you that even with the challenges of the past two years, nearly all of the shops you will read about on this list were visited by me; in a few cases, where time was a factor, we felt confident relying on trusted industry experts for their opinions. For a couple more, I knew from experience that nothing had come along since my last visit to unseat a past pick.
South Carolina
Pop quiz—which is the best coffee town in South Carolina? In the recent past, the answer has definitely not been Charleston. Cafes, places to hang out all day, surely, but Greenville and even Columbia have long been more serious about the craft, something that was distinctly missing from too many of Charleston's best spaces. Joel Sadler and Allyson Sutton have been plugging away at building their perfect shop for a few years now, moving from an occasional pop-up to their diminutive, extremely charming home back in 2019; today, Sightsee, far off the tourist trail, draws in-the-know locals to a small, but fully-realized operation. Claim a chair, a bit of pavement, and eavesdrop on the gossip, while enjoying some of the most careful drinks in town—made, if you're lucky, with South Carolina's best coffee (Methodical, in Greenville)."
