The entrance to Midnight Animal Coffee Shop and Roastery in National City outside San Diego. All photos courtesy of Midnight Animal.
Something novel is awakening in the shadow of an industrial building in National City, California, and at its heart something ancient is growling. This thing is Animal of the Northa beast among brands combining the culture of vintage motorcycles and Mexican coffee roasted on a vintage Diedrich IR12 smoking room.
Midnight Animal, located on the southern edge of San Diego, offers whole bean coffee, as well as a established espresso menu for takeout and reservations. The menu also features several imaginative Mexican-inspired drinks, such as café de olla, Mexican mocha and tres leches latte.
They reflect the Mexican heritage of Midnight Animal’s owner, Christian Ardel, whose vision and sensibility are evident in the 4,500-square-foot, multifunctional space that houses Midnight Animal.
Ardel told Daily Coffee News that the building was originally divided into five separate spaces, one of which was occupied by a surfboard shaping shop. Ardel took over the other four spaces, knocked down the main walls between them, and then created less obstructive partitions between what is now an appointment-only Italian motorcycle repair shop and a imaginative design agency.
The Midnight Animal coffee cart is more clearly fenced off at the front of the building, in accordance with local health regulations. The roastery is located behind the cafe, observable to visitors to additional businesses.
A tattoo studio is also set to open upstairs, reflecting another passion of Ardel, who heads up the three-person café team, which includes the barista and his sister, who provides business support.
Ardel roasts coffee several days a week on a 1987 Diedrich machine he bought from a friend in San Diego. James Coffee Co. after this company bought Love system. With green coffee, Ardel is once again leaning towards what it knows.
“As a Mexican, I drink most of my coffee at home,” Ardel said. “I just buy it in Tijuana.”
Sister Ardel works out the logistics of importing and transporting the coffee to the Midnight Animal warehouse, where it is roasted and packed in bags designed to resemble vintage cars.
“I mainly work with Italian motorcycles and rebuild them from the ground up,” Ardel said. “The whole aesthetic, the barbershop, I built everything here. The coffee cart I built and welded myself, the tables, everything down to the drywall.”
Construction on the space, which began in July 2019, was completed in time for an unannounced, tranquil opening in September of this year. Ardel said COVID-permitting, they could risk a grand opening early next month. That will be followed soon by the launch of a ready-to-drink CBD-infused canned coffee and an expansion into roasting for the wholesale market.
Midnight Animal is now open at 7pm. 3101 Hoover Ave in National CityCalifornia.
Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the deputy editor of Daily Coffee News at Roast Magazine. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
