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The National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia takes on Starbucks with a sleek new café intended to bolster Colombia’s reputation in this competitively caffeinated age. If you’ve had Maxwell House, you’ve probably had Colombian coffee, but chances are you haven’t sampled a tinto cardamomo or a dulce-de-leche-enhanced macchiato. Already embraced by the Latin American community, the café hasn’t quite mastered counter service yet and the snacks need work, but who knew that mustachioed, donkey-riding Juan was such a design geek? The façade features his abstract image etched onto a stainless steel screen, and a free-flowing styrene wall, meant to evoke coffee, wraps around the lounge. — Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld