A cult favorite coffee shop in Center City is a destination for rare brews

In 2011, Cody McGregor took an unexpectedly life-pivoting college trip to a Costa Rican coffee plantation as part of an environmental policy course. At the time, the bulk of his coffee knowledge came from serving Seattle’s Best at a Borders in North Jersey—a gig he sought not for the coffee, which interested him fleetingly at best, but the discount on books.

How far he’s come since.

Today, McGregor owns and operates the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, 300-square-foot corner shop Thank You Thank You Coffee Brewers at 701 Sansom St. on Jewelers Row. He’s also a multiyear competitor in the U.S. Brewer’s Cup and Cup Tasters competitions — the Olympics for coffee — and former Ultimo Coffee manager. Though Thank You Thank You opened in May 2021, it has managed to fly under the radar as a destination for other baristas and coffee aficionados from Philly and internationally, given its proximity to tourist-heavy Old City.

Like many during the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic, McGregor was laid off from his then-job as a quality control manager at ReAnimator Coffee and sought entertainment and connection in isolation. One way he did this was seeking out coffees from around the world and sharing them with local barista friends. By the time the lockdowns ended, and he was back in his old job — and after briefly returning to behind-the-bar work as a barista — he realized his passion to curate and share hadn’t waned.

At heart, he was a brewer and curator.

“I think that’s why we call it coffee ‘brewers,’ because everybody in the city is ‘something-something coffee roasters,’ and I wanted to put the focus on brewing coffees by hand for people and curating a singular experience for guests,” McGregor said. “But also … shifting the focus from ‘This was roasted locally’ to ‘This is a local person brewing and curating coffees for you.’”

The shop served 29 different roasters last year and, in the past two years, 300 different lots of coffee. The pickings, truly, are international: just a few on rotation are coffees from Dak and Friedhats, based out of Amsterdam; Luna, based out of Vancouver; and Leaves, based out of Tokyo. The shop also carries world-class coffees from Manhattan Coffee Roasters, counterintuitively based in the Netherlands. The roaster carries lots that are typically reserved for the competition circuit.

“With the type of coffees Cody is bringing into his shop from roasters around the world, he’s really looking to showcase the top percent of the top percent,” said Drew Frohn, a mentor for McGregor who first encountered him while managing the Ultimo Coffee location in Graduate Hospital. “It’s always been the case that he wants to share these things with everybody, regardless of whether it’s with someone coming in from another notable coffee shop excited about a specific coffee from a specific roaster, or one of the guys from the jewelry shops on Jewelers Row coming in for espresso.”

The nature of the shop’s specialty approach is also reflected in pricing: Patrons can expect to pay well above the $15-$20 range they might encounter at other shops for a bag of beans and pour-overs are also several dollars more than is typical. The trade-off: Tips are built into the pricing, making the shop one of few no-tip locations in the city for coffee.

“People are almost entirely relieved to find out that it’s built into the price, that no one has to worry about anything, and the price advertises what you’re paying with no secret ‘Can you add $3 to this at the end or I’m going to guilt-trip you,’” said McGregor. “I know how hard this work is [for baristas].”

It also, he added, lends itself to an experience with “less friction.”

In spirit, both in aesthetic and service, Thank You Thank You aims for intimacy and community, McGregor said. The small shop takes inspiration from international owner-operated shops in Asia and Europe, but also what was formerly Box Kite in Manhattan, which had a similar square-footage and focus on rare coffees. Beyond that, he hopes to showcase coffees that are a little more experimental than what coffee lovers would find elsewhere. Largely, he said, they’re coffees cultivated by a younger generation of farmers who are pushing boundaries in processing.

“I felt like there was a spot in the city to put these coffees out there — [like from] the farmer that’s 22 and graduated college with an agronomy degree and really pushing how coffee can be grown. There’s new ideas out there,” he said.

Put another way, he said: Imagine the difference between tasting only a Red Delicious apple, and then sampling a Honeycrisp.

More recently, McGregor has been curating coffee for businesses and collaborating, including with Cuzzy’s Ice Cream Parlor to isolate the right coffee for their coffee ice cream. But ultimately, he’s less concerned about growth — or the Pearl Properties development next door, for that matter — and more interested in continuing to cultivate a space with his two employees that surprises and delights.

“We’re still settling into ‘It’s working,’” he said.