Free Wi-Fi, real tables and rooms you can settle into for an hour: a practical guide to working from a coffee shop in uptown Centerville, along the Wayne Avenue corridor, and in Oakwood and Kettering.
We're a seasonal shop, open Saturdays only.
You'll find us at the counter on Saturdays, from just after Labor Day through the Saturday before Christmas, 10 AM to 2 PM. The rest of the year we're closed. Order ahead and we'll have it waiting, or see hours and location.
Working from a coffee shop around Dayton is easy in theory and occasionally awkward in practice. You find a great room, then discover every table is taken by 9:30 on a Saturday, or that the only seat left is a couch that will ruin your back by hour two.
We run a coffee shop, so take this with the usual grain of salt. House Blend Cafe is at 58 E Franklin St in uptown Centerville, open Saturdays from 10 AM to 2 PM through December 19. But we talk to laptop workers every week and drink coffee all over town, so here is how we would plan a work session in south Dayton.
Our own room is built for exactly this. We have free Wi-Fi throughout the cafe, a mix of cozy corners and a community table in the back, and an outdoor patio when the weather cooperates. We are a seasonal shop, so our hours are narrow: Saturdays, 10 AM to 2 PM, September through the Saturday before Christmas. One quirk worth knowing: we are a pay-what-you-want cafe. The listed prices are a suggestion, and anything above that goes to charity, so a long work session here also buys Christmas gifts for kids at Centerville Schools. You can see the full setup on our location page.
A few minutes away, Coffee Hub Centerville — 450 N Main St is an easy stop on a Main Street errand run, and ContempoRoast — 967 S Main St sits on the south end of town. East of Centerville, Nutmeg Cafe — 9166 Dayton Lebanon Pike in Washington Township is worth the short drive if you want a change of scenery.
The most walkable coffee block in the region is Wayne Avenue. Press Coffee Bar — 257 Wayne Ave, Reza's Downtown — 438 Wayne Ave, Wholly Grounds — 825 Wayne Ave, and Hawthorne Hill Coffee — 521 Wayne Ave are all within a few blocks, which means you can try one room in the morning and walk to another after lunch. Ghostlight Coffee — 1201 Wayne Ave in South Park is a slightly longer walk in the same direction.
Elsewhere downtown, Boston Stoker — 34 W 2nd St and Winans Chocolates + Coffees — 221 N Patterson Blvd are the convenient picks if you are downtown for an appointment. Coffee Hub — 215 E 3rd St, inside the Dayton Metro Library is a genuinely great work spot when you need silence and a library table.
North of town, Tastefully Roasted — 6 Oakwood Ave in Oakwood and Central Perc European Cafe — 2315 Far Hills Ave in Oakwood are both comfortable for a slower session. In Kettering, Epic Coffee Shop — 22 W Stroop Rd is the neighborhood stop most people we know default to.
If you are bringing a small group, a study partner, or a client, you can hold a spot ahead of time: we take reservations for our seating areas, including the back room and the patio. For a bigger tour of the local scene, our Centerville guide covers the south end of the map, and the Dayton coffee crawl strings six shops into one day.
One last note: hours shift with the seasons, especially at seasonal shops like ours. Check before you drive, and bring a backup plan.
