As the dust from January’s blaze begins to settle, what’s next? Los Angeles coffee shops share how they’re coping post-disaster.
BY MELINA DEVONEY
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE
Featured photo courtesy of Highlight Coffee
Yesterday, we released part one of this article and heard from three cafés —Highlight Coffee, Caffe Luxxe, and Bevel Coffee—on how they were affected by the wildfires that caused destruction in Los Angeles this past January. Today, we’re continuing our discussion with these establishments as they continue to heal post-disaster.
Bouncing Back: Placing People Over Profit
As the dust settles across Los Angeles, one thing has become clear: the importance of sticking together during trying times. When reflecting on the wildfires, Mark Wain, co-owner of Caffe Luxxe, emphasizes the importance of staying true to your values in the face of disaster—and how that drove his team’s approach as they began to “bounce back.“
“During this crisis, you see the best and the worst in people,” Mark says. “We wanted to make sure that we displayed our humanity. … Do you really as a company believe what you say you believe?”
For Caffe Luxxe, staying true to their values meant ensuring the safety of their team and customers. The company did not open locations until everyone felt it was safe, paid their team for missed hours, and relocated willing team members from closed locations to open ones.
Similarly, Highlight Coffee moved baristas from their Altadena store (located dangerously close to one of the largest fires, the Eaton Fire), to their Glendale location. These decisions by Caffe Luxxe and Highlight Coffee offered baristas a sense of normalcy, and helped provide backup for those needing more breaks or shortened shifts due to the emotional toll of being on the front lines.
Caffe Luxxe, as well as Bevel and Highlight, honored their employee and customer relationships by proactively reaching out to those who were displaced. However, Highlight Coffee owner Frank Kim shares that, with little assistance for long-term revenue loss, the café is still struggling to figure out how they’ll be able to maintain paying a full team.
What About Insurance?
A big topic of discussion post-wildfire has been the issue of insurance. Fires and other natural disasters are drastically influencing the national insurance landscape, and, according to Wendy Pyle, a commercial insurance broker at Hub International, insurance companies have adopted the mindset of: “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when disaster strikes.
“Insurance companies have started pulling out and not wanting to even write business in wildfire prone areas,” she continues. Insurers that stay in the game restrict coverage and raise premiums “horrendously” even for businesses outside fire zones.
“With there being such an overwhelming demand right now for insurance claims and remediation services, it has taken us a lot longer than we hoped to reopen,” Frank says.
Even a North Hollywood roastery untouched by the fires was met with nearly a dozen insurers refusing to quote its fire insurance renewal in February. The only offer the roastery received was 35% more than the prior year.
The East Coast’s hurricane season will likely exacerbate California’s staggering premiums, as insurers brace for coast-to-coast damage. Wendy notes that past hurricanes caused property insurance premiums to quadruple for some Florida cafes.
Because fire damage hit regional carriers in California harder, Wendy advises finding reputable national or international carriers that will stick with you for the long haul. She also stresses organizational resilience and perfected precautionary strategies like evacuation plans and sprinkler systems. These safeguards largely influence insurance premiums, or the chance of getting coverage at all.
“If you’re operating in a building (without sprinklers), you put another nail in the coffin in trying to get decent insurance,” she says.
Finding any way to carry on for their community was a uniting motivation for the three coffee businesses. The barrier was arguably lowest for Bevel Coffee: a coffee cart located in Los Angeles’ Altadena neighborhood on the patio of Prime Pizza, which sat less than a mile away from the epicenter of the Eaton Fire. Owner and roaster Kevin Mejia avoided remediation and insurance nightmares and was well-equipped to run pop-ups immediately after evacuating.
While nearly all of Altadena’s brick-and-mortar cafes remained closed for two months, Bevel was operating within one. Local businesses lent Bevel equipment, pastries, and pop-up space, allowing Bevel to pay it forward.
“We gave out drip coffee to whoever wanted to come and hang out while the ash was still in the air and the skies were black,” Kevin says about the first week back. “People showed up en masse to support, and we had one of the busiest first days ever.”
The opportunities for pop-ups and catering afforded by a mobile cart broadened Bevel’s network and created “priceless” connections. “Our lease in Altadena is more of an emotional lease,” Kevin says. “We don’t want to leave because we’re so connected to all these people that we can’t imagine doing anything else.”
Kevin is preparing for a shifting customer base, and for support to eventually run out of steam as customers permanently move away and move on.
Already, Frank has seen the consequences of donor fatigue and the rapid news cycle, as Highlight couldn’t rally as many donations as they had hoped for the shop.
Still, these café owners remain hopeful.
Evolving Perspectives
Knowing how much perspectives change with time, Mark has taken a step back in search of a broader one. For instance, another fire closed Caffe Luxxe’s Malibu location for five days in December, but its burn scar acted as a fire break for the Palisades fire.
“If that fire hadn’t burned back in December, the Palisades fire would’ve taken out the rest of Malibu,” Mark says, feeling unexpectedly lucky.
In the same vein, café owners say the fires brought blessings in disguise. Their perspectives are largely re-framed with gratitude for the empathy and support they received from their local and broader communities.
“When stuff goes sideways, you have people around you—colleagues, competitors, friends, etc.—who are behind you,” Mark says with a sense of calm and encouragement. “We’re going to look back and we’re going to go, ‘We’re stronger now than we were before that,’—unfortunately because of it.”
As society keeps moving in a way that Frank describes as “too fast and too hard,” he also expresses his hope for Angelenos to heal by slowing down and refocusing their attention toward what really matters.
“If you are in a blessed position to pick up the pieces and able to continue running your business, focus on what is keeping you around: your team, the community, the people,” Frank says. “Disaster or not, we are here to be good people for each other. … Keep bringing the kindness, empathy, and generosity to the work you do.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Melina Devoney (she/her) is a barista and freelance writer in Los Angeles zeroed in on coffee and agriculture. She aims to amplify the voices of farmers and a diversity of perspectives within the coffee industry, and she’s happiest when running on wooded trails and dancing at concerts.
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