Nostalgia Coffee cart in San Diego. All photos courtesy of Nostalgia Coffee Roasters.
Every content moment in the present moment is a breeding ground for pleasant memories in the future, the concept Nostalgia Coffee Roasters expands its operations in San Diego.
The company, which first hit the streets on a mobile cart three years ago, recently hired Brandt Radowski, a former roaster at Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, to assist expand its on-site roasting business.
Nostalgia Coffee founder Taylor Fields told Daily Coffee News that when the company began roasting coffee, demand quickly outstripped the capacity of Nostalgia’s 800-gram Arc Roaster. Capacity 12 kilograms US Roaster Corp. The machine is scheduled to join Arc next month and will be built in a 1,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Miramar.
For now, Nostalgia is working in shared mode San Francisco SF25 machine located in California Roasting Collective co-roastery north of San Diego, where Radowski gives green coffee its brown color.
“I think it’s ridiculous that the cost of coffee is measured as a commodity in Guatemala versus Mexican and African coffee, when there are so many different costs that have to be paid for farms to be successful,” Fields said. “The way we approach coffee now is that when I talked to Andres, for example, I said, ‘How much money do you need at the production level, at the farm level, to be successful and grow year over year, and how much do you need to be able to pay your workers? As a company, how much do you need per pound to do that?’ That’s what we want to pay for coffee.”
Nostalgia Coffee Founder, Taylor Fields.
Once those coffees land in the basket in San Diego, they can be sent through a Slayer coffee machine paired with a Nuova Simonelli Mythos 2 grinder. From there, guests can take them away or lay the groundwork for fond memories among the tables, chairs, music, and numerous potted plants. Nostalgia sets up around the basket to create a mini outdoor café at San Diego’s Lane Field Park and local farmers markets.
“We’re bringing that coffee shop experience that maybe you grew up in or had a first date with, that kind of nice but also elevated experience, like you know the barista, but the coffee is special too,” Fields said. “It’s also a place where you can hang out and feel welcome. I’m gay… we’re LGBTQ, we’re open, inclusive, diverse — come hang out with us.”
Fields said the company is close to completing a $500,000 seed funding round that will support production of a batch of brew-in-bag product for grab-and-go purchases. The company also has gigantic plans for a brick-and-mortar retail location, potentially coming in the fall.
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the deputy editor of Daily Coffee News at Roast Magazine. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
