Here, community is as vital as caffeine.

Occupying Gambier’s busiest intersection—and of course “busy” is a relative term in the village—the coffee house offers a full array of coffee creations, teas,and cold drinks, plus bagels, pastries, cookies, soups and light sandwiches. But here, community is as vital as caffeine. This is the place where friends meet for a snack, professors have long talks with students, and classes sometimes gather to elucidate texts between sips. Day or night, the booths and tables are occupied by people chatting, reading, writing, browsing through a newspaper, spending quality time with their laptops, or just taking a quiet break.

Coffee house factoid: Mark and David Forman, the father-and-son team that runs Wiggin Street, care about sustainability. They travel to Central and South America, working with importers so that they can trace their beans to individual farmers.