Ohøj Coffee Roasting

Kevin Ayers ran the bar as head barista and head roaster at Paris's Coutume Cafe from 2011 to 2015, placing second and third at the French barista championships along the way, before a visa he couldn't renew forced him to leave. Rather than return to the United States, he and his wife Kristin Beisler went looking for a European city with an underdeveloped coffee scene, affordable rent, and decent transit links, and landed on Utrecht in 2017.

The result is a minimalist, Scandinavian styled roastery and espresso bar tucked into a residential stretch of Rijnlaan, running on a short morning schedule that ends by early afternoon. Kevin works the counter solo until 1pm, then switches to running the shop's Diedrich 5kg roaster, a rare case of the same person handling both the bar and the roasting on any given day.