Cracken Coffee Roasters

Cracken roasts its own beans, which is rarer in Everett than the number of shops with Roasters in the name would suggest. Most of the city's coffee is bought in from someone else, often very good someone elses, so a working roaster in a suburban suite is a different proposition: what you drink here was made here.

It sits on 128th Street Southwest in the Lake Stickney part of south Everett, nowhere near the downtown cluster on Colby and Wetmore. For a traveler that is the point rather than a drawback. You can reach Cracken without ever driving into the city center, which makes it the coffee stop on a day that was always going to be spent somewhere else.

Live in Everett has paid it more attention than most small shops get, with a written feature and an episode of their video series. Their headline called it the best new coffee in south Everett. That is a writer's phrase rather than an award and it is worth saying so plainly, but it does mean somebody who covers this city for a living went out of their way to go.

Two things are still not public and the entry is honest about it. No source names an owner, and the hours are posted nowhere findable, so call before driving out. The roasting came from a visit rather than a search, which is how most of what is true about a small shop gets established.