A homegrown coffee company has expanded from its cafe in Pacific Beach to a second storefront in Ocean Beach.
Coffee Cycle Roasting, founded and owned by Chris O’Brien at 1632 Grand Ave. in PB, just opened a new site at 4856 Voltaire St. in OB. His new space is quadruple the size of his PB site inside, as well as having an outdoor patio.
O’Brien is a true grassroots entrepreneur and coffee pioneer. Working since age 16, he spent seven years learning his craft at Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, before breaking out on his own.
So how did coffee and cycling get connected by O’Brien? “Once at the end of a shift, I invited a couple of my co-workers over to my house where I had 10 bikes in my living room,” O’Brien said previously of Coffee Cycle’s origin. “It was a joke that I ought to put a cafe on the back of one of those bikes. I woke up the next morning and began sketching it.”
It took the coffee connoisseur three years to perfect a functioning, mobile coffee cart. Afterward, for nine months, O’Brien drove his homemade mobile coffee cart to Pacific Highway south of Fiesta Island close to Old Town. There, he worked a stretch of self-described “nowhere road,” catering primarily to cyclists. The venture worked, and O’Brien’s next move was to the storefront on Grand Avenue in 2017. He did all his roasting off-site.
In the space at his new OB place, O’Brien has a five-kilo roaster allowing him to roast Coffee Cycle’s beans on-site for the first time. That affords him greater control over the quality and freshness of his product.
“The goal here was to get the (coffee) roaster inside and have the cafe and the roaster in the same space,” said O’Brien adding, “Now we get to have our machine and hone our craft by ourselves.”
What distinguishes Coffee Cycle from the competition? “The relationships we have with the farmers,” replied O’Brien. “And the quality of the coffee that we have is so much higher because we’re able to focus on the smaller batches that are produced at the farms. And the quality of the stuff we add to it (coffee), making our syrups, making our non-dairy milk.”
There is another important distinction at Coffee Cycle. “We put a lot of care into the training of each employee,” noted O’Brien. “Each of my employees knows coffee. More than just how to make it, they understand why it tastes the way it does. Employee training is huge. I just refuse to compromise on that. Something I’ve always taken pride in is the education we give to our employees. That’s what allows us to give great service.”
Everyone enjoys a good-quality beverage, pointed out O’Brien, but there’s much more than that to getting prospective customers through the door.
“People come to a coffee shop because it’s the high point of their day,” O’Brien said. “They know the person behind the counter is going to care about what they’re doing for me. It’s so important to be a part of something that’s purely positive, getting to contribute to people’s days getting better.”
Once he’s settled into his new OB location, O’Brien expects to expand his hours to 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays, and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends.
Of his expectations being in the coffee business, O’Brien said: “The number of hats you have to wear is always staggering to me. I ended up doing a lot of the building (remodeling) here as well.”
What else is Coffee Cycle OB planning in the future? Replied O’Brien: “We want to do a lot of coffee-focused events, music, art, games. I just want people to feel comfortable here.”
COFFEE CYCLE ROASTING
Where: 4856 Voltaire St.
Hours: 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekends.
