Coffee Shops in Great Falls, MT: Where the City Shines

“Our culture runs on coffee and gasoline, the first often tasting like the second.” –Edward Abbey

For some of us, drinking coffee is a thoughtless morning ritual – wake up, turn the pot on, sip it mindlessly while you eat breakfast and start doomscrolling on your phone, then finish it off on the drive to work. If you’re scooping your coffee grounds from a certain red can or picking up venti drips from a drive-thru chain, Abbey’s quote might not feel too far off.

But for people in our hometown of Great Falls, coffee drinking is more of a leisure activity than a caffeine delivery system (or at least, it can be). Great Falls might not compare too favorably with other Montana cities when it comes to shopping or nightlife, but the town’s coffee scene is its shining light.

There’s a comical number of Starbucks in town at this point – but what’s more exciting are all the other coffee shops. In a completely unscientific analysis, I’d say there are more high-quality, independent coffee shops in Great Falls, per capita, than anywhere else in Montana.

That being said, coffee shops are a subjective experience. Some people want the very best cup of coffee, made with fair trade/organically grown/minimally-processed beans, roasted to their exact specifications, and gently brewed in a pour-over. Others just want a caffeinated beverage and a comfortable spot to discuss the news of the day with a friend. Fortunately, the Electric City has something for every coffee drinker to enjoy, and for residents, practically a new shop to explore every week.

The Best Coffee Shops in Great Falls, MT

Morning Light Coffee Roasters

Out of respect for the OG Great Falls coffee shop, I’ll start this roundup with Morning Light. They’ve been here since 1988, long before there was a Starbucks (that came in the early-2000s) and way before third-wave coffee culture crept into Montana.

For most of my life, Morning Light was in the same spot on 9th Ave. N., in the old Eddy’s Bakery Building. It was historic, you could watch the coffee roasting next to the counter, and it was within walking distance of downtown Great Falls. When they moved into the old La Pastada building on 9th Ave. S. in 2016, I was positive it would kill their business.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s been a huge success at this much brighter location, and it’s one of my favorite Great Falls coffee shops to sit and write. It’s usually not too crowded, and the eavesdropping people-watching can’t be beat. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that Morning Light is one of the cheapest spots in town – $2 for a drip coffee with a free refill. The new location also has a nice patio for enjoying Montana’s beautiful summers.

Thankfully, they brought over one of my favorite features from the old location – the mug club. Regulars get to hang their favorite mug on the wall so it’s waiting for them every morning. Though if you don’t have time to stop in for a caffeine fix, you can brew Morning Light’s coffee at home with a monthly subscription box. It’s also what you’ll get if you order a coffee at Showdown Ski Area.

Now, Morning Light uses its decades of experience to consult with budding coffee shops, teaching them the ins and outs of roasting, cupping, and business.

Bonus: They have some of the longest hours of any Great Falls coffee shop – 5:30am-5:30pm on weekdays and 7:00am-2:00pm on weekends.

Crooked Tree Coffee and Cakes

Not only is Crooked Tree one of the best coffee shops in Great Falls, but I’m certain its opening in 2011 was a turning point for the downtown. After Crooked Tree came Mighty Mo Brewing, 5th and Wine, The Block, Electric City Coffee House, Fire Artisan Pizza, and several other local bars and restaurants, revitalizing the area around Central Ave.

Coincidence? Maybe, but Crooked Tree brews an amazing cup of coffee and has some of the best bakery treats, so I’m inclined to believe they were the catalyst.

Their airy shop on the corner of 1st Ave N. and 5th St. is the perfect spot for hanging out with friends or meeting a client, with its huge windows overlooking a five-story mural of Charlie Russell across the street. Best of all is the cozy feel of the quieter second-floor mezzanine.

Crooked Tree brews with Herkimer coffee beans from Seattle, which while not local, are a big step up from the ones used at Seattle’s more famous coffee roaster. They make several of their flavored syrups in-house, and the milk used in the cappuccinos and lattes is from Kalispell Kreamery.

What really sets it apart, though, is the pastries. Owners and sisters Lindsay Hagar and Leah McClosky got their start creating custom cakes and used that as a jumping off point for developing the coffee shop.

Today, their baked goods are hands-down the best in Great Falls (their biggest competition coming from Great Harvest Bread Co. right next door); I’m a big fan of the cinnamon coffee cake, chocolate croissants, and all the cookies. The pastry selection is constantly changing, so you’ll always have something new to try.

Electric City Coffee

Electric City is the only Great Falls coffee shop that’s really a full service cafe, with an extensive breakfast and lunch menu including breakfast burritos, sandwiches, and salads, plus a huge range of pastries and other desserts. They post a new lunch special on Facebook almost every day, come up with frequent new specialty coffees, and constantly rotate the dessert options.

Back in the Before Times, Electric City was also open for dinner, and it was incredible. The menu changed frequently, the chef (who, full disclosure, is our good friend) created inventive dishes that were unlike anywhere else in Great Falls, and it was a great date night spot. Unfortunately, these dinners don’t look like they’re coming back.

That tragedy aside, Electric City is still the best coffee shop in Great Falls if you want a meal with your coffee. And though I’m not a big fan of cold brew, Jen tells me that Electric City’s is the best in Great Falls. They also source their beans from Montana Coffee Traders, a long-standing roaster just outside of Whitefish, MT.

As of late, Electric City has been one of the busier coffee shops in Great Falls. Chalk it up to the great food and inviting atmosphere – with exposed brick and tons of local artwork on the walls – so it’s not the best spot for working or studying (or if you’re in a rush).

Al Banco

If you’re not a coffee snob, there’s a chance you’ve never noticed Al Banco, located inside the Machinery Row building on 2nd Ave. S. Sometimes the most amazing things are found in the most unexpected places, though.

Family-owned Al Banco is unquestionably the coffee connoisseur’s shop, one that’s about quality, not quantity. The drink options are limited, with the aim of letting the essence of their coffee shine through. They roast their own beans, which you can also buy a bag of while you’re there.

So don’t go in expecting to order a caramel Irish cream blast or some other syrup-drenched dessert shake. There’s only two flavors – vanilla and mocha, both of them made in-house. They don’t even make regular drip coffee; I always get the long black, a double shot of espresso with a few ounces of water.

Accompanying the abbreviated coffee list is an equally short food menu consisting mainly of a few pastries, quiches, soups, and sandwiches. However, at the risk of sounding incredibly millennial, I have to recommend the avocado toast. They make the bread fresh every day (and often run out before lunch), and my favorite one is topped with an incredible blend of seeds, greens, feta, and egg.

Service can be slow, as the baristas meticulously prepare every shot of espresso, weighing out the grounds, packing them just so, and brewing with water heated to the exact degree. So maybe go elsewhere if you don’t have time to wait – but if you have time, it is well worth the wait. And it’s best enjoyed on the beautiful back patio, which Al Banco shares with Magpie, one of the newest restaurants in Great Falls.

Note: Al Banco is open on Mondays, but the kitchen is not (meaning you can get drinks, but no food).

Bloom and Bean

For the longest time, I wasn’t even sure this was a coffee shop. Bloom and Bean sits right off 10th Ave. S., across the street from the Holiday Village Mall, so it’s certainly not off the beaten path. But are they just a florist that serves you a cup of coffee while you browse through a binder of wedding centerpieces? Hardly, it’s actually one of the best coffee shops in Great Falls, and probably the most underrated.

Don’t get me wrong, Bloom and Bean is a flower shop, and you can browse through those centerpieces or pick up a dozen roses for Valentine’s Day there. But it’s also a full-service coffee shop, and the coffee stands on equal footing with the floral arrangements.

The beans come from One & Ten Coffee Company in Fort Shaw (30 minutes from town), which doesn’t have its own café, and you can grab a bag of beans at Bloom and Bean. While they stock every syrup you can fathom, such quality beans mean even the black coffee is full of flavor. There’s also smoothies and a few food items, including pastries, breakfast dishes, and soups.

All those colorful flowers and lush plant life give the shop a unique atmosphere that you don’t see at any other Great Falls coffee shops. It’s never too crowded, and there’s a plush couch to spread out on, making it the perfect spot to meet up with a friend, sit with a good book, or finish up a few tasks on your laptop. And when you stop in, it’ll likely be owner Rebecca Hannant brewing your coffee herself.

The entrance is shared with the casino next door, so just turn left when you walk in!

Luna Coffee Bar

Luna opened in late 2020, making it the city’s newest coffee shop. The husband-and-wife team behind Luna, Sam Aarab and Caitlin Boland Aarab, who also run the law firm upstairs, found the downtown area lacking in quick lunch spots for busy workers. Caitlin grew up in Great Falls, but Sam is from Norway – and it’s the coffee shops his family used to run that inspired Luna.

Luna’s Nordic heritage is evident in its focus on simplicity. The coffee is excellent, making use of beans roasted down the street at Al Banco, and there aren’t too many options beyond basic espresso drinks – just a few things done really well. There’s also a few panini options, pastries from Great Harvest, and freshly squeezed orange juice.

I often find myself at Luna on Sundays, because it’s the only downtown coffee shop that’s open. It’s not usually very crowded, which makes it a good spot to linger with friends or get some work done.

One word of warning: There’s no bathroom at Luna, and if you ask about one, they’ll direct you across the street…to Crooked Tree.

Miss Kitty’s Coffee Cafe

Miss Kitty’s doesn’t get a lot of attention since it’s all the way up on 25th St. N. in the IGA/Snyder Drug parking lot, but it has so much to offer. First, it’s located inside an old mechanic’s shop, so it has these big roll-up doors on the front that give it a funky feel. Second, they serve Intelligentsia Coffee, which is not an area roaster (it’s in Chicago), but provides high-quality, ethically-sourced beans that make a good cup of coffee.

Most importantly though, Miss Kitty’s has a very fun cat theme – you can’t miss the giant cat logo on the window. There’s also cat photos on the table, cat statues behind the counter, images of cats on the cups, funny cat puns on the signs (and I usually abhor puns), even a few cat-themed drink names.

To go with that delectable cup of coffee, they serve some truly massive breakfast burritos and a variety of sandwiches prepared on Great Harvest Bread. Given the location on the north side of town, it’s one of the best coffee shops in Great Falls to stop at after walking the River’s Edge Trail or visiting Giant Springs – and it’s one of just a couple in town that are open on Sundays.

Caffeination Station

Coffee snobs usually turn their noses up at drive-thru coffee stands, but if you write off Caffeination Station on that basis, you will be missing out. This seemingly little-known drive-thru coffee hut, out on the far northwest edge of town, easily holds its own when compared to the other coffee shops in Great Falls.  

There’s really two reasons to go to Caffeination Station. The first is that, like Bloom and Bean, they use the quality beans from One & Ten Coffee Company. (Interesting that the two most underrated Great Falls coffee shops serve beans from One & Ten!) The second reason is that their sign on the Vaughn frontage road is a giant (like, 20-foot-tall) coffee cup, and that’s kind of fun. I would say you can’t miss it, but it seems like a lot of people in Great Falls do.

Now, I’m all about actively drinking your coffee, enjoying each sip, rather than guzzling it down while driving to work. If you have the time, I suggest taking your coffee over to Wadsworth Park, about a mile away. It’s a beautiful setting, very dog-friendly, where you can actually savor those special beans.

Broadwater Coffee Brewing Company

Broadwater Coffee is another place that will challenge your assumptions about drive-thru coffee shops, although I believe it did have an indoor section back in the Before Times. (It hasn’t reopened – but leave a comment to let us know if this ever changes.)

As for the coffee, I should mention that I just really like black coffee, almost always ordering a regular drip coffee or an americano. However, Broadwater is one place I deviate from this, and it’s because they have the very best specialty drinks in Great Falls – namely the Mayan mocha, a perfect blend of chocolatey goodness and cayenne pepper to complement the espresso. It’s not for everyone – it’s much spicier than your typical Mexican mocha or hot chocolate.

For everyone else, there’s Broadwater’s secret mocha. I won’t ruin the surprise, but I will tell you that it’s really, really good. If you don’t like surprises, there’s also the caramel cloud (white chocolate and caramel) or the white glacier (white chocolate and huckleberry), plus frequent seasonal specials.

In addition to having the best mochas in town, it’s also the only place I know of in Great Falls where you can order waffles at a drive-thru. Not just regular syrup- or fruit-covered waffles, either (though they do have those), but grilled cheese waffles! A waffle sandwich with a layer of cheese between them. What’s not to love?

Be sure to download Broadwater’s app to order online and earn points towards a free coffee.

More Coffee Shops in Great Falls, MT

While we count the spots mentioned above as our very favorite coffee shops, Great Falls has quite a few others. These are some of the long-standing institutions in town, where your cup of java will be an authentic local experience.

Schulte’s

It’s been over 30 years since Mark and Judy Schulte bought an old gas station/convenience store on 3rd Ave S. and 20 years since they converted half of of it into a coffee shop. Schulte’s has since become a local institution on the east side of town, where it was the only independent coffee shop until Miss Kitty’s opened in 2014.

My favorite thing about Schulte’s? The gooey cinnamon rolls, which are massive, so be sure to come hungry. They’ve added some frozen yogurt machines in the back, so it’s also the place to go for your fro-yo fix.

Amy’s Morning Perk (AMP)

Amy’s Morning Perk might have the appearance of a drive-thru coffee hut (and there is a drive-thru), but looks can be deceiving. AMP has plenty of seating inside, and it’s one of the coziest coffee shops in Great Falls.

The small space has an incredibly homey vibe, with just a few tables, a couch, low wooden ceilings, and mountain chic decor. It feels like you’ve wandered into someone’s cabin – someone who’s ready to serve you a hot cup of coffee. If you need more than a cup of Joe, the food menu has everything from breakfast burritos to paninis to home-made soups.

When Washington-based farm and outdoors store North 40 opened their West side location in Great Falls, I was pleased that their coffee bar contracted with Amy’s instead of some national chain. So now you can shop for a new Yeti cooler while sipping on a brew from a local institution.

True Brew

True Brew might not have been the first drive-thru coffee hut in Great Falls, but it was probably the first to develop a cult following – one that has hung on for over a decade and propelled the owners to open up a second location.

They’re best known for specialty drinks with names like True Turtle and Cinnamon Roll, their signature frozen espresso drinks, and a long list of teas and other non-coffee options. Maybe even more than the variety of drinks, True Brew is known for having quick service. So this is the place to go when you want a funky drink and you don’t have a minute to spare.

City Brew

You’d be forgiven for mistaking this coffee shop for Starbucks, given its signage and aesthetic, but City Brew is actually a Montana-born chain. The first one opened in Billings back in 1998, where there are now a dozen locations, with over twenty more spread across Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. 

City Brew’s prices are competitive with Starbucks, the baked goods are higher quality, and they have a wide range of drink options, including a few seasonal specialties. Both locations in Great Falls are spacious, so you don’t feel like you’re taking up too much space if you’re sitting with your computer all day. Plus, City Brew is the only coffee shop in town to stay open in the evening – until 9:00pm, seven days a week.

Great Falls Coffee Map

This map shows the location of all the coffee shops listed (plus the many Starbucks locations for good measure). For the most part, they’re congregated into three areas of Great Falls: downtown, 10th Ave. S., and the West Side.

Click here for an interaction version of the map!

What are your favorite coffee shops in Great Falls, MT?

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