Going Green at 18th & Spruce: Inside Blank Street’s New Rittenhouse Cafe
The chain known for quick grab-and-go coffee built this one for lingering, with curved banquettes, terrazzo tables, and a window bar facing 18th Street.
Consider the blank space left by Starbucks officially filled!
Blank Street Coffee, the New York chain that got its start as a single battery-powered coffee cart in Brooklyn, is now open at 1801 Spruce Street on the corner of 18th, in the space Starbucks called home until almost exactly a year ago. If you spent the summer peeking through the sage-wrapped windows trying to figure out what was going on in there the good news it that they did a lot more than repaint.
That Starbucks held down this corner for eleven years. It was the pre-work stop, the place you met a friend before a walk around the Square, and the spot where half the block’s dog walkers seemed to converge around 8am (they’d have pup cups ready to go!). When it closed in September 2025, everyone who walks Spruce wanted to know what would come next. It was always the perfect spot for a coffee shop, so the news that Blank Street was coming made sense, at least to us.
Putting Down Roots at 18th & Spruce
If you haven’t met Blank Street yet, your TikTok feed has almost certainly met it. Founders Vinay Menda and Issam Freiha launched the brand in 2020 with one coffee cart parked in the garden of the Wythe Diner in Williamsburg. Six years later, they’re running more than 100 locations across New York, Boston, D.C., and, as of last month, Los Angeles, plus a handful of U.K. cities including London and Manchester.
Philly is getting two of them. Along with our corner, Blank Street is building out a 3,500-square-foot café at 3603 Walnut Street in University City, one of the largest stores the brand will have in the U.S.
All Spruced Up
Blank Street made its name on small, mobile-order-first cafés you can be in and out of in four minutes. For Rittenhouse, they went bigger. They gutted the Starbucks and rebuilt it as something that looks like a sleek lobby had a very stylish baby with a Milan espresso bar.
Curved banquettes in cream and sage leather (or plether) sit on sage bases, with stainless steel pedestal tables in front of them. The tabletops are marbled terrazzo flecked with green and pink. Overhead, the ceiling is warm plaster, and oak paneling wraps the walls. It’s a lot of design for a coffee shop, and we mean that as a compliment.
Our favorite seat in the house is the window bar! Chrome pedestal stools line a terrazzo counter looking out on 18th Street, which makes it a very good perch for watching the neighborhood doggos go by.
Green Room Energy at the Pickup Bar
We could have happily watched the pickup bar all afternoon. Order a matcha or one of the Signature drinks and a barista builds it right there in full view. Our cup came to the pickup area with ice, milk, and a syrup. Then the matcha was poured fresh into the cup, and art was made.
It’s a little bit of theater, and the kind of focus usually reserved for a Bake Off technical challenge. It makes the wait part of the fun.
Go Green or Go Espresso
The menu comes in three parts. The Classics cover hot brew, espresso, americano, cortado, flat white, latte, cappuccino, and cold brew, plus a straight matcha tea and a matcha latte. The Signatures are where the TikTok fame lives, with the Blondie, the Shaken Vanilla Bean, the Daydream, and a Strawberry Shortcake matcha. Right now the Seasonals are a Cinnamon Bun and a Harvest Chai.
Every Signature and Seasonal can be made with matcha, coffee, or espresso, so the matcha devotee and the die-hard espresso person can order the same drink and share a table in peace.
And for anyone who wandered in with a friend who doesn’t do caffeine (or matcha), the grab-and-go cooler has waters, yogurt, range juice, and, a personal favorite, chocolate milk.
An Evergreen Corner
Spruce is quieter and more residential than Walnut or Chestnut, and for more than a decade this corner has been where the block gets its coffee. We’re glad it stayed that way. All that seating makes Blank Street a place to stay a while, whether that’s an hour on a laptop or a slow Saturday matcha. On the days we’ve been there we’ve seen people working on their laptops (guilty), and many people in and out, both before and after their workouts, which was fun to see.
Blank Street also joins a great run of coffee and matcha openings around Rittenhouse. Matcha Panda continues to grind away at 2033 Chestnut, Haraz Coffee House is bringing Yemeni coffee to 1822 Chestnut. Then we also have Mad Cat Brewtique brought its special concoctions and community to Sansom, Moment Coffee and Gelato with Asian-centric drinks and more a few blocks up at 129 S 18th, and Korean café, KYN, on its way to 1807 Chestnut. Plus Jabal Coffee House is pending for 2027!
Once again the corner of 18th & Spruce is alive. So grab a matcha (or a chocolate milk, we don’t judge), snag a banquette, and let us know what you ordered! We’re still deciding whether the Cinnamon Bun is better on espresso or matcha.
