Best patio in Albany

best patio in albany

The best patio in Albany is a hard category to find a clear winner. If you’re drinking beverages of any kind outside during nice weather, chances are you made a good decision on how to spend your time.

Regardless, our pick for the best patio is a tie between Cafe Hollywood and the City Beer Hall, with the wildcard being the Wine Bar.

Both Hollywood and the City Beer Hall patios are huge, so it’s rare that they feel too crowded and you can still enjoy a conversation at a normal volume. Both patios also have table service, so you don’t have to leave your post outside in order to get a drink from the bar. It is also very hard not to enjoy the walk to the City Beer Hall, if you take State Street down. I also enjoy the Wine Bar’s patio, which is smaller, because of the atmosphere, with exposed brick and vines overhead.

City Beer Hall, 42 Howard Street, Albany, NY
Cafe Hollywood, 275 Lark Street, Albany, NY
The Wine Bar and Bistro on Lark, 200 Lark Street, Albany, NY

The best coffee shop in Albany

The best coffee shop in Albany is Stacks Espresso Bar, Lark St (soon to also be on Broadway). The focus at Stacks is coffee. They are a multi-roaster shop which is still quite rare in this area. That means they have many different coffees from many different companies. They have a small selection in their bakery case of goods from local bakers. Their espresso is among the best in the area, and they usually have more than one option ready to go for espresso. It’s typically their house blend espresso as well as single origin or espresso blend from a featured roaster. I’d recommend avoiding the house coffee, and opt for an Americano with either the house espresso or guest espresso, or a pour over if the shop isn’t too busy. As mentioned, they do pour overs on the Wave or Aeropress, iced pour overs, cold brew, macchiatos, etc., and even pumpkin spice lattes if that’s what you’re into.

The best coffee shop in Troy is Superior Merchandise Co., 4th St, Troy. Superior Merchandise bill themselves as a “design shop + coffee bar”. They recently added a bottle bar where you can buy rare Nordic beers to take home, and they also have two beers on tap, a bunch of bottles, cider, and canned wine (it’s surprisingly good). In addition to this, they have the strongest coffee program of any shop in the area. Everything from their cheapest batch brew to their $5 signature drinks is considered and well executed. Their coffee comes from select roasters that change every few months. They also host coffee classes about brewing at home with different coffee apparatuses such as the Kalita Wave or Aeropress. They even bring in extremely rare, pricey coffee from somewhere in Scandinavia once a month for the aptly titled Scandinavian Saturdays.