Celebrate Pride Month With These Creative Café Drinks: Part One

A roundup of our favorite Pride-themed beverages.

BY EMILY JOY MENESES
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE

Featured photo courtesy of Melynda Gallagher of Lost Shoe Brews

Anytime is a good time to support and uplift the LGBTQ+ community—but June is Pride Month in the United States, meaning now is an especially great time to do so. To celebrate Pride Month, which is meant to honor the Stonewall Uprising that took place in June of 1969, these coffee shops have crafted a variety of creative drinks: love letters to all of the people, of all identities, who make the coffee world the vibrant space that it is.

Enjoy a Pride-Themed Flight at October Cafe

Chicago’s October Cafe is celebrating Pride Month with not one drink, but four. “(Our shop) is a year-round fall-themed café,” says Audrey Borden, who runs the coffee shop with her wife, Michelle Gonzalez. “Every day of the year, (we) offer house-made pumpkin spice lattes, and every season, we also introduce a new coffee flight. This June, October Cafe is celebrating with a Pride Flight.” 

The shop’s Pride Flight comes with four cortado-sized drinks: Love (strawberry lemonade); Community (a lavender latte); Family (jasmine iced tea with peach and mango); and Pride (a ube and vanilla latte).

Sip on Rainbow-Inspired Drinks at Paper Plane Coffee Co.

Based in Montclair, N.J., Paper Plane Coffee Co. is known for offering creative drinks year-round. “At (our shop), we approach specialty coffee the way many approach cocktails: It should be fun … an experience you can’t just get anywhere,” says founder Jonathan Echeverry, a fifth-generation Colombian coffee grower. “We release new drinks every month, inspired by pop culture, travel, and nostalgia, and for Pride Month, we wanted to celebrate joy and inclusivity with a rainbow-inspired menu.”

The shop’s Pride Menu includes three drinks: Ruby Slippers (espresso with rainbow cookie syrup); Wicked Witch (matcha with rainbow cookie syrup); and Rainbow Connection (sparkling matcha with rainbow sherbet syrup).

“We’re known for our playful, ever-changing drink menus and for crafting an experience where anyone can feel welcome and inspired,” Jonathan says. “Pride Month is a beautiful opportunity for us to lean even further into those values, and to celebrate inclusivity through the creative drinks we love making.”

Make a Toast to Pride Month with Lost Shoe Brews’ Cereal Milk Latte

Marlborough, Mass.’ Lost Shoe Brews shares that they’re currently donating $1 from every sale of their Cereal Milk Latte to OUT MetroWest: a fellow Massachusetts-based organization dedicated to supporting and empowering the LGBTQ+ community. The Cereal Milk Latte, which combines Fruity Pebbles-infused milk with espresso, is also available as a part of the shop’s seasonal latte flight.

Lost Shoe Brews’ co-owner and roaster, Melynda Gallagher, shares that since last year, the café has been holding a monthly Drag Bingo at the shop and, later this month, will host Marlborough’s very first Pride Block Party. “In May 2024, we started working with some amazing Queens to bring (our) monthly Drag Bingo to the taproom, and (every event is) consistently sold out well in advance of the event date,” Melynda says.

“Since we opened in 2019, we have centered our business around community and creating an inclusive environment for our team and customers,” Melynda continues. “We’ve immersed ourselves in this mindset, and it truly shapes how we make decisions for our business.”

Next week, we’ll release part two of this article to showcase more coffee shops across the U.S. and the drinks they’ve crafted in honor of Pride Month.

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