• Favorite Coffee Roaster: Cleo Roasting Co.
• Favorite Coffee Shop: Cavo Coffee

Houston’s coffee lovers have been buzzing over Cleo Roasting Co. and its sister café, Cavo Coffee, crowning them as the winner of Favorite Coffee Roaster and Favorite Coffee Shop, respectively, in 2025’s Gayest & Greatest Readers’ Choice Awards. At the heart of both victories is a shared mission of making coffee about building a community, and not just providing our daily caffeine fix.

For Cleo Roasting’s head roaster Vivian Nguyen, better known as Vi (they/them), coffee is both a craft and a calling. “I source my coffees seasonally, making sure that everything is in season and fresh. As the head roaster, my role involves sourcing and profiling the green coffee, which means creating the roasting profiles for espresso, filter coffee, and single-origin coffees,” Vi explains. “Also, I host cuppings, or tastings.

“Then I lead my team in doing the production roasting, so we’re turning green coffee brown and highlighting the characteristics of the coffee itself.”

Founded in 2018, Cleo has become a West University neighborhood fixture. “We are a local roasting company on Bissonnet at Kirby,” Vi shares. “We’re very community-oriented. We are a big staple in West University, and we are just here to serve our community coffee, waking up our neighborhood one cup at a time.”

That sense of responsibility extends to sourcing practices, which purposefully depend heavily on women producers. “I believe that women coffee producers need to be highlighted,” Vi emphasizes. “Our industry is male dominated, from producers all the way down the chain to being a barista. I don’t know many roasters here in Houston, or at all, who aren’t men. There’s so much hard work that goes into growing coffee, and I think it’s important to share the love. All of the money that we invest in our green coffees makes a huge impact, all the way back to the countries of origin.”

Cleo’s commitment to sustainability also sets them apart. “Our product comes in renewable packaging,” Vi says. “Our retail bottles can be returned empty for a dollar off the next bottle of coffee. It is something that is important to us, as we don’t want to put more waste in this world than what we are already doing.”

Next door at Cavo Coffee, general manager William De Lorenzo sees the connection between Cleo’s ethical roasting and the café’s mission of community care. “Probably about 90% of our staff are in the LGBTQ community,” he notes. “We really focus on making it obvious that we are a safe place for queer people. We have Pride flags hanging around the shop, and we’re all pretty queer. We host events for queer people.”

Recognition from OutSmart readers left William in shock. “It means that we are doing the right thing and we’re visible to the people who it’s important for us to be visible to. I feel like we’re a little blip on the radar in Houston coffee. There’s so many great coffee shops, and I don’t really know of any other queer-run ones, honestly. But it tells us that we’re headed in the right direction.”

For customers, the connection between Cavo and Cleo is tangible. “Our clients really like that they can literally turn their head to the left from the register and see where their coffee is coming from,” William said. “They like that they can watch it being produced, and they like that it’s traveling just 15 feet to get into their hands.”

Both Vi and William see these Gayest & Greatest honors not as accolades, but as affirmations of their deeper mission. “I want to put us out there as a safe space for queers to gather, to enjoy a good-ass cup of coffee, and just to turn off for five seconds,” Vi says.

William echoes that sentiment. “Cavo is an extension of our living room, basically, and we treat it like that. Everybody is welcome here,” he adds. “We have sat while guests cried on our shoulders because of big life events. We don’t make the business the forefront. It is about the community connection and the community involvement, and making sure that the people on the other side of the counter don’t feel like they’re just a wallet.”

In Houston’s ever-growing coffee landscape, Cleo Roasting Co. and Cavo Coffee stand out not just for what’s in the cup, but for the care behind every pour.

For more info, visit cleoroasting.com and cavocoffee.com.