Equal parts tasting flight and focused hour of work.
AJ Kim and Scott Sohn opened their second Loquat in December 2025, a 250-square-foot bar pouring coffee they roast in Los Angeles from lots their green buyers choose at origin each harvest. Esther Kim, lead brewer at the group's Atelier Q, won the 2026 US Brewers Cup and represented the United States at the World Brewers Cup in Brussels.
Tohm Ifergan came off the road as a drummer in From Indian Lakes to open a Silver Lake cafe with his cousin Philippe, and a trademark dispute over their original name, Neon, drained their startup cash before they had sold a single cup. He built the shop around what he had learned pulling shots at Portola Coffee's Theorem bar in Costa Mesa: that a customer sticks around longer for a story about the bean than for another flat white.
Jacob Park and Joonmo Kim met working at a coffee shop, spent about three years planning, and opened Maru on Hillhurst in late September 2016. The name comes from the Korean phrase San Ma Ru, meaning mountaintop, their shorthand for the idea that the best coffee comes from high elevation, and the standard they were trying to hit.
6 shops
