What Polcari's Coffee is known for

Anthony Polcari, an Italian immigrant, opened this North End shop in 1932, and the family still blends its coffee and scoops spices from bins and glass jars. Three generations later, Polcari's carries over 150 spices alongside coffee, nuts and Italian dry goods.

Polcari's Coffee traces to a single immigrant's arrival: Anthony Polcari, who came from Italy and opened the shop on Salem Street in 1932. His wife Rose and their children worked the counter alongside him, and the business passed down through the family — his son Ralph eventually took over operations, and today the shop is run by a proprietor named Bobby, described by regulars as someone who "makes you feel welcome" in the same spirit the shop has kept for over ninety years.

The North End location still scoops coffee, dried beans, nuts, spices and Italian dry goods from bins and glass jars rather than pre-packaged shelves, a presentation that has become as much a part of the shop's identity as what's actually in the jars. The inventory runs deep — well over 150 different spices, legumes, flour, grains, rice and extracts — alongside deli items, pasta and candy, making Polcari's less a coffee shop with extras than a full old-world pantry that happens to blend its own coffee in-house.

Open limited weekday and Saturday hours and closed Sundays, the shop has resisted the instinct to modernize its format even as the neighborhood around it has changed, keeping the bins-and-jars presentation that three generations of the Polcari family built the business on.