RND Coffee Lounge

Incredibly pleased with this place! Ordered an avocado toast w/ Turkey and was pleasantly surprised that they added pickled onions (yum!), basalmic, paprika and shaved egg yolk. I also got their cold brew in my to go tumbler, added oat milk that they have in their self-serve fridge. Great experience!

Hands down favorite coffee shop in Roanoke, love the ambience and vibe, the delicious food. However, it is a younger persons vibe, full of pretentiousness and gossip. The artsy “knew better” barista misgendered me, but apologized. We’ve got to do better at just assuming everyone identifies as ma’am. Being listed as a black owned business I expected to see more people of color working as baristas. Surely there’s some qualified BIPOC in the community needing a job. At least one. Sheesh.

Sweet little coffee shop in a tucked away historic neighborhood. What food options they had looked good but it was a very limited selection. The coffee on the other hand is delicious with an abundance of cool beverage options including chai and yerba mate for caffeine sensitive types. I saw lots of hikers the day I stopped in. Street parking only and just a handful of seats so it's pretty cozy.

So cute!! Coffee and bagel were really yummy. I got an iced latte ( caramel )
The update is they currently don’t have the “ coffee jelly “ which I was super stoked to try so that was a bummer but other wise the staff was really friendly and the vibe was really chill. I would come back :) street parking was easy to find, at least on a Monday morning

I have my moments where I long for the days in college when I studied for hours in a coffee ☕ shop... a long time ago.

Then I quickly snap out of it as alerts and notifications come through my phone and the moment is gone.

RND is one of those Coffee shops that is tucked away but worth the stop.

Now I know RND is here so when I am on a bike ride or run 🏃‍♂️ on the 30 mile trail following the river, I can stop by and get a macchiatto.

Definitely recommend 👌 and will be back.

Great coffee and staff. First time having a nitro! Got one of their specialty lattes... sweet cardamom? Delicious! The couch near the window desperately needs replacing. Great vibe. ❤️ Will go back when I'm in town.

Great coffee, nice decor, and comfy seating. If I were to be super picky, the milk steaming/latte art could be improved. But overall great local coffee shop with solid drinks. They were out of nitro today, so we'll have to come back and try that next time!

Order: Smoked Apple Cinnamon Latte, Pour Over, Coffee Jelly
Price: $23
Positives: The flavors were incredible and they offer truly unique coffee “drinks”,
Negatives: Seating wasn’t super comfortable.
tldr: RND is one of the most creative coffee shops I’ve ever been to, and on top of that they are on point this with their basics. This is a must visit coffee shop no mater what you’re looking to get from your cafe.

Thoughts: My wife had said this place was fantastic because the owner does some insanely creative coffee stuff. She wasn’t joking. When we walked in one of the first things I noticed was the smoking device on the counter.

Given my insatiable curiosity one of the first questions I asked the barista, who also happened to be the owner, what he does with that smoking machine. When he told me he makes a smoked cinnamon apple latte I just threw money at him. Then my wife told me I also needed to try the coffee jelly. Wait, I thought, coffee jelly? Like what is going on in this shop shop? Coffey jelly and smoked lattes? This was either going to spectacular, or a disaster. But I trust my wife so we also ordered coffee jelly and then we got a pour over. The pour over was mostly just because I have been missing out on pour overs for days. To be fair it had only been one full day since I had a pour over but addiction am I right?

The pour over was very basic, simple, but really good. You could taste the depth and complexity of coffee. The coffee jelly was unlike anything else I’ve ever eaten. He explained it was coffee with a little bit of gelatin, just to make it solidified, and then served in a cup with condensed milk over it. My worry was that it would taste like bland Jell-O, flavored with coffee and that wasn’t even close to the case. The stuff was fantastic. It was like drinking coffee that you could also chew that had this wild texture in your mouth. It was so good that I ordered it without question the next time we walked in the door a few days later. It definitely wouldn’t be something that became my standard fare if I lived in the city but it is phenomenal and you definitely have to try it if you haven’t!

The smoked apple cinnamon latte was another mind blower. So he makes this apple cinnamon latte, which to be honest would probably be good all on its own because he’s hand making the syrup plus, as I found out later apparently the owner was a chef before becoming a coffee master and you can kind of tell the way he works on his drinks that there’s more going on in his head than just coffee. Anyway, so he makes this latte and then he smokes it and lets it sit inside the smoking glass for a good five minutes.

When I tell you that this thing showed up at our table smelling like warm apple pie being eaten around the campfire I’m not even sort of exaggerating! Just smelling this thing made me happy and tasting it was unreal! You tasted the wood, the apple, the cinnamon, and the coffee all in this glorious amalgamation of a drink. It did come off as a little bit sweet though I wasn’t exactly surprised because after all it’s a smoked apple cinnamon latte. If it wasn’t sweet it might be weird. I wish there was more espresso in it and if I ordered it again I would do it as a cappuccino not as a latte just to make that espresso pop a little bit more in the drink.

If you can’t tell by my absurdly long review of two coffee concoctions, I loved this place. We went back again as we were passing through the city to leave our vacation and I would 100% come here all the time if I lived nearby. Apparently he changes the espressos and the different drinks and I would love to just work my way through whatever this man came up with for years. If you live anywhere nearby (I’m literally clapping my hands while I say this that’s how serious I am) you owe it to yourself to get to RND Coffee. Not only will you get amazing coffee you will get coffee presented to you in a unique way that you will almost certainly have never encountered before. I just hope that we get to go back sometime soon.

Cappuccino and buttermilk pie in a warm, friendly place after a four mile walk in a cold rain. Heaven!

I love this coffee shop!! The vibe is nice the staff is great and so is the food!!!