With seven cafes in the greater San Francisco Bay area, Equator Coffees will soon launch its first outpost in Los Angeles. The Marin County-based cafe will set up shop in Culver City’s highly-anticipated Ivy Station, an exciting, 500,000-square-foot mixed-use development adjacent to the Los Angeles Metro Expo Line station.
The story behind Equator Coffees traces back to 1995 when co-founders Brooke McDonnell and Helen Russell began roasting and selling coffees in a Marin County garage. The coffee company focuses on quality, sustainability and social responsibility, having established a decades-long relationship with Fair Trade. Since its inception, Equator Coffees has expanded to seven cafes across San Francisco, Mill Valley, Larkspur, Oakland, and Sausalito with Culver City next on the itinerary.
With its proximity to numerous tech and entertainment studios, including NPR, NFL Network, Apple, Amazon Studios, and Sony Pictures Studios, Culver City makes an ideal neighborhood for a coffeeshop. Aside from being a bustling hub of arts, entertainment, and technology, Culver City also has a vibrant residential and bike-friendly community. Equator Coffees’s Chief Executive Officer JP Lachance told What Now Los Angeles that, given the company’s strong support for and connection to the cycling community in the San Francisco Bay Area, the coffeeshop looks forward to connecting with the cycling community in Culver City.
Equator Coffees will settle into suite 105 of the Ivy Station at 8900 Venice Boulevard. The coffeeshop will span 1,400 square feet and offer both indoor and outdoor seating. Depending on public health guidelines at the time of its launch, original plans for 42 seats inside and 20 seats outside may be adjusted to encourage social distancing. The cafe will open onto the Ivy Station public park, a communal green space that will have year-round event programming.
Equator Coffee’s interior design will embrace the history of its new location, which has been a rail station since the 1800s. Lachance said that Equator Coffees is working with architect Kellie Patry of Kellie Patry Hospitality & Immersive Design, who will incorporate the coffeeshop’s proximity to the Culver City Metro station into the design to create “a beautiful space that subtly invokes classic train shapes and details.”
Equator Coffees will launch its Culver City outpost by late October or early November.
