Café Review: Rowan Coffee
Mallory Wallace-Usry | Nov. 4, 2025
Treats from Rowan Café in Asheville, N.C. (Mallory Wallace-Usry/Echo)
As fall settles into the mountains and the semester marches on, finding moments away from the buzz of campus life proves increasingly important. I find solace more often than not in the warmth of a small café, and Rowan Coffee certainly fits the bill.
Founded in 2021, Rowan Coffee is built on the principle of “finding balance.” They describe their philosophy on their website:
“We are striving to do our part to help build a viable future for coffee, from the café level all the way back to the producers whose coffees we roast and serve. As the end of the supply chain, we believe it is our responsibility to create a coffee experience that carefully represents all of the work that has gone into the final product for you to enjoy!”
This review is based solely on their Broadway Street location, but I am open to trying their Haywood location in the future.
For years, one of the simple joys of my life has been trying new cafés and diners everywhere I go. I love coffee and tea, I love a good pastry (let’s ignore the fact that I’m gluten intolerant) and I love that cafés serve as a third space in today’s hyper-independent culture. Taking these aspects into account, I’ve created a few categories upon which to base my rating of the café.
Food
Drinks
Atmosphere
Each category operates on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the worst and 10 being the best.
Food - 8.5/10: I bought their morning glory muffin ($5.25), which is both vegan and gluten-free. Filled with dried fruit, seeds, nuts and spices, this muffin was everything you’d expect it to be. The fruit inside was soft and added a bit of sweetness to an otherwise mild flavor, and I was pleasantly surprised at the texture of the muffin, which was moist and not crumbly at all compared to the other gluten-free pastries I’ve tried. My one qualm was that it could’ve used more spice, but I am a cinnamon fiend. Overall, I think this was a solid choice and worth the money. It’s hard to go wrong with a breakfast muffin, and Rowan is no exception.
Adah, my roommate, bought an everything bagel with cream cheese ($5.00). Again, a basic choice, but if a café does the basics right, they usually get most other things right as well. Rowan’s bagels are made from homemade sourdough bread, and you can’t really get cream cheese wrong. The plating of this dish stood out, with the cream cheese scooped into a little ball in a dish beside the bagel - very charming.
The other pastries looked delicious and I would try them all if I were not gluten intolerant, but as I’m unable to, perhaps you will be influenced to try them in my stead.
Drinks - 7/10: I bought their fall special, the sweetie pie latte, which is made with brown sugar, sweet potato, pumpkin, fall spices and a toasted marshmallow garnish. The presentation was gorgeous,; it certainly looked more expensive than the $6.25 I paid. Despite this, the latte itself didn’t impress me at first taste. It was more milky than I would’ve liked, and once again I couldn’t taste much spice. The sweet potato was an interesting, subtle flavor for coffee, and it grew on me over the next hour. This drink was autumnal, but not in the typical pumpkin-spice-latte way we tend to associate with the season. If you order, I recommend giving it a few tries before you make a final judgment - I ended up really enjoying it.
Adah ordered a hot brown sugar latte for $5.75, and Rowan delivered a beautiful drink. Served in a latte glass, the foam on top was poured in a pretty little heart design. This coffee was a bit stronger than my latte, but was still pretty mild all things considered.
“It’s very smooth,” Adah said. I can’t help but agree.
Interior of Rowan café in Asheville, N.C. (Yelp)
Atmosphere 9/10: I am nothing if not a sucker for good design, and Rowan does not disappoint.
The shop is narrow but extends back far enough to have multiple rows of Parisian café tables at each end. The main seating is a high-backed wooden bench which spans almost the entire length of the café, with a few larger tables and chairs at the back of the shop.
It honestly feels like you’ve traveled back in time a little when you enter, but Rowan does a good job of invoking the essence of antiquity without making the café feel too cluttered or stuffy. Rowan certainly offers a bit of escapism for those so inclined to indulge, along with good food and drink.
In terms of workability, I think Rowan is a great third space to spend time and tend to whatever business you need to. The café wasn’t too busy, and even if it was, the layout provides enough separation between the register and seating areas that it wouldn’t be hard to find a quieter spot.
As someone who frequently spends hours working in cafés, I’m excited to go back and journal or get schoolwork done at Rowan in the near future.
Overall, I rate Rowan Coffee an 8.1 on my amateur reviewer scale. The food is solid; what the coffee lacks in exoticism, it more than makes up for in presentation, and the general vibe of the café makes for a wonderful place to hide away from life for a while. On top of that, the prices really weren’t bad considering how expensive most cafés are these days. I highly recommend checking it out, and I will definitely be back to study there sometime soon.