Proving Ground Coffee Roaster & Café - Columbia (IL)

4 /5 Rebecca Ritter: A lot of the setup is diy. You grab your own menu when you go in.You order, they prepare your drink and then you have to go up to the counter and grab it, grab your own utensils, grab your own water.If you want to fix your coffee, you have to go up to the counter for all of the sugar packets and whatnot. They will bring your food out to you.So thats good, but you have to bus your own table. I got the white chicken chili yesterday.It was so delicious. There was plenty of seating, and they have a nice outdoor covered patio for outdoor seating as well. Outdoor seating is a little limited.So if thats your plan, get there early. Theres plenty of seating inside.

5 /5 Elizabeth Surmeier: Beautiful interior, love the ceiling and copper walls! The food was phenomenal and so was the coffee, I had the Bee Sting and it was delicious!

5 /5 Sean Arians: I’ve been several times before. Finally tried something different. The eggs with the mixed potato’s are great. The monkey pancakes are a bit on the sweet side but absolutely wonderful. Ordered these to share which was the right idea! Coffee is great. They’ve expanded their seating inside with a small patio outside for the nicer days. Staff are always friendly. Stop on by and enjoy!

5 /5 Jake Little: The coffee is unbelievable and they clearly focus on every detail in the menu They also continuously improve the space both indoor and outdoor. Thank you for serving me and my goals in this way!- Jake

4 /5 Adam Dragon: Let’s start with not so perfect points: This is not full service restaurant, so you do serve yourself kind of like “Starbucks” but not as bad service. Also they expect you to clean after yourself, again not impressive concept. And the most annoying part is they still suggest you tip them just as well as if this was 5 star full service restaurant. (I personally am great tipper, for full service experience) but I intentionally choose to not give full tip for over the counter service or partial service. And last negative was dirty floor on the patio and nobody paying any attention to it or attempting to clean it. (Poor management) Ok now good parts : Very good coffee, I really enjoyed everything about my coffee drink. Very good food, quick and tasty made out of quality ingredients, really no complaints about Food or Drinks at this place. Last but not least, I do have to mention staff, even though they don’t actually serve you at table they are still very friendly and they offered to bring out order out to the patio which they did with a smile. Overall this is small what appears to be local coffee shop and people are nice from workers to all patrons that I could experience. So yes i recommend this place for coffee and breakers or snack .