I’m running dangerously low on coffee beans. My local spots here in NELA are great, but I’ve been supporting them pretty thoroughly lately and I’d love to get out of the house and take some advantage of the empty freeways. Does anyone have any recs for or opinions on coffee roasters in areas a little outside of my hamster bubble?
For reference, things I’m considering:
Portola in OC
Arcade in Riverside
Patria in Compton
Rose Park or Lord Windsor in Long Beach
Happy to trade tips if anyone has NELA questions too!
Too bad Taco Maria is closed otherwise you could bang bang it up. Keep in mind that 4th St Market in Santa Ana is closed.
The Portola in Tustin is across the parking lot from J Zhou which is great for Chinese. Not sure what their take out and dim sum operation is like right now. You’d be fairly close to Cream Pan, Oliboli Donuts and ST Patisserie. 3 great spots for pastries, cakes and donuts that would go well with a nice coffee from Portola.
Portola, call ahead sometimes they have Gesha beans. Those are worth a try if you want to splurge.
Check out Kean, it’s Martin Diederich’s shop. Great variety of beans. Grab one of their espresso-based drinks to go, they keep it traditional. Try Cafe Borgia (chocolate and orange) or Italian Cap.
Here is West Adams I really enjoy Alibi Coffee Beans. Also, South LA Cafe carries Red Bay from Oakland (Hopefully their place in Jefferson Park. I am not sure if it’s open still, but my favorite in the area is Cafe Ignacious. I got three bags before the safer at home order just in case…
Thanks for all of these awesome replies! Ended up making the drive out to Arcade, where we got a fantastic latte and I got a very nice cold brew, and some beans from Oaxaca and a very intriguing bag of carbonic macerated beans from Yunnan, China - very curious to try them. Also stopped by Baba’s Hot Chicken at the Riverside Food Lab, which was quick and very solid.
I’m sure we’ll be on the hunt again in a couple of weeks, with plenty of other spots to try!
@raihan thanks for the tip on Tulip House! Hadn’t heard of them before. Love their janky hipster aesthetic and the beans sound really cool. Looks like the physical location is closed, but may order a bag online sometime very soon.
@js76wisco great minds! We were actually planning to do a Portola + TM + Green Cheek run… on the day that TM announced they were closing. The area is definitely still a high priority though.
@JeetKuneBao Kean sounds really cool, and I wasn’t familiar with Martin Diedrich until you mentioned him, but just read an article - what an interesting dude!
Trystero would be my #1. See if they’re selling. I really like the guys at Roasted and Toasted. Lately have been grabbing whatever stuff at Green Maya across the street.
@Nemroz love Trystero! And love the HPB beers that use his beans too . Just wanted to take a drive out of the neighborhood today.
@JeetKuneBao I’ve had a few cortados from their shop, which I really enjoyed, and some pretty solid cans of cold brew too. Never gotten a bag of beans from them though.
I am super tempted to make very same trip… I had to go stock up at Everytable for work lunches and decided to swing by Ignacious to see if they were open and sadly they were not. I said a prayer to Virgencita for a blessing I had this week and then noticed that one of their Primo Roasters had been taken out for a cleaning! Oh little roaster… hope you are in production soon!
Portola Coffee Roasters: free coffee with a purchase of a $25 gift card; $5 gift card with a purchase of a $50 gift card, a $20 gift card with a purchase of a $100 gift card.
Highly recommend the trip if you can make it! It was very nice to get out and on the road for a bit. It looked like there was a bunch of interesting food out that way too.