James Coffee Co. Adds Two New Locations

For the last year in the half, James Coffee Co. has been running its roasting facility out of a warehouse on an industrial stretch of Pacific Highway that it shares with motorcycle shop San Diego Customs. Earlier this month, the local roaster launched a coffee bar in the space, which joins locations in Little Italy and Bankers Hill. Open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays, it’s another fueling stop for its legion of fans and an unexpected amenity for the eclectic group of neighboring businesses which range from Specialty Produce to a strip club.

Though his coffee can be found at select spots around town, including Heartwork Coffee Bar in Mission Hills, Barrio Logan’s Por Vida and Cooper’s Market & Cafe in La Jolla, founder David Kennedy says he wants to focus the company’s expansion on online sales and satellite coffee bars rather than the wholesale market.

Kennedy also says he’s open to collaborations, including running the coffee component of an existing restaurant or complementary business. He was recently approached by Tae and Mandy Dickey, who own downtown’s Biga on Broadway, to take over their in-house coffee program and will debut there starting Tuesday, April 10. The coffee bar will operate from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends. Tae Dickey told Eater that he plans to roll out a new breakfast menu to pair with the coffee and shared, “We’re extremely excited at the idea of partnering with James Coffee. For a long time I’ve appreciated the care and attention they pay to their craft. David and I are both in agreement that we rarely see restaurants that have great food and a great coffee program. I think the difficult part of coffee that many restaurants do not pay enough respect to is that it is so precise and very particular in order to extract the full potential of the beans. I’ve known this for a long time but did not have the resources to properly train my staff to produce a coffee as exquisite as James Coffee. This will be an amazing partnership and we hope that everyone thinks so as well!”