Stingers Coffee Shop

Stingers Coffee Shop sits in The Ray Hotel's lobby, in the Pineapple Grove Arts District of Delray Beach, and it works as a café in its own right rather than as a guest amenity: espresso drinks, matcha, cold-pressed juice and breakfast plates.

Coffee, matcha and cold-pressed juice

The drinks list is practical rather than technical: handcrafted coffee and tea, cold-pressed juices, matcha, and a run of flavoured lattes. The ones people name are the iced hazelnut latte and an iced oat milk vanilla latte, with straight lattes and cappuccinos underneath them.

Hot chocolate covers the non-coffee order and a seasonal hot marshmallow mocha latte turns up when the calendar allows. This is a café menu built to serve a range of orders quickly, not a single-origin showcase.

A compact lobby counter

The room is lobby-integrated and compact rather than a standalone coffeehouse, but seating is not an afterthought: there are places to sit and eat, and the lobby carries plenty of tables.

Service comes up consistently as friendly, efficient and quick, which is what a counter in a busy hotel lobby has to be. The property around it is design-led and warm, with rooftop energy and its own restaurants, and Stingers is its most accessible room by some distance.

Start with the iced hazelnut latte

Start with the iced hazelnut latte. It carries the most specific praise of anything on the list, described as refreshing, creamy and fast, which covers most of what anyone wants from a lobby coffee. Matcha is the clearest alternative and hot chocolate broadens the non-coffee side.

For food, the range runs from pastries and grab-and-go items to a plate of egg whites, bacon and potatoes for a proper breakfast, with fresh snacks and light bites filling the middle. Stingers works best for one focused thing, a coffee, a matcha, a juice or a breakfast plate, taken before moving on.