I’m sitting at my second Cat and Cloud location in two hours, taking a little coffee cruise through Santa Cruz, California. I’ve followed this company since they were founded in 2015, the brain child of two California dudes, Chris Baca and Jared Truby. While it’s certainly true that coffee roasters in California may be a dime a dozen, with new businesses starting and folding and starting and folding all the time, these guys struck me as different from the start. I knew their names and faces from coffee publications and events; Baca had been a barista competitor back when I was newish in coffee and started following that sort of thing in the early 2010s. The way he talked about coffee was probably not unlike how many baristas did (including myself), with respect for the process and a nerdy affinity for the finer sensory points. But the way he talked about service—the experience of a guest in a coffee shop—was different.
Around the time they started Cat & Cloud, Baca and Truby also started a podcast. They covered a lot of coffee-adjacent topics, but my favorites were always when they talked about service philosophies, exploring the role of a barista in a coffee shop. Our job is unique: we get to be the final link in the chain, representing all the work that has been done up to that point, delivering a coffee experience to someone who will actually make it part of their body. (While these guys may not have said it exactly that way, their ethos resonated with me on similar points, and still does.)
Cat & Cloud's original location, Santa Cruz, CA
Our first stop in Santa Cruz this morning was their original location, on the southern edge of the city in what feels like a grungy-hip-artsy neighborhood. A thrift store across the street, a seemingly abandoned muraled-up building next door. Benches and a few tables on the cement patio facing the street, and tidily-packed-in seating inside a fairly small but well-organized space. Lots of light, piles of attractive pastries in a glass case, and a menu that describes a flat white as “not a cappuccino.” There’s a one-and-one on the menu: these guys have my heart. I ordered one of those (of course), as well as a drip coffee (on a menu of my own creation, this combo is affectionately dubbed a “barista breakfast”) and two pastries. The house blend drip, the cashier told me, is the same blend used for milk-based drinks, a blend of Brazil, Colombia, and a natural Ethiopia, a classic, versatile combo for many roasters and for good reason. I almost bought a hat. I almost bought a t-shirt. I held back, but only because I’m on a budget.
the whole spread (yes, I was sharing)
A twenty-minute, 8-mile winding drive across town took us to the newer flagship location, which also houses Cat & Cloud’s roastery and training spaces. There’s a full kitchen here, and it smells amazing, but I abstained since we’ll be meeting someone for lunch another hour down the road. Since I’ve already consumed a reasonable amount of caffeine and it’s not even noon yet, I opted for a decaf flat white. The barista was kind enough to offer me a sample of the decaf–the blend was called “Friend Zone”–brewed as drip to give me a sense of the profile, and while it didn’t blow me away, it was sweet and balanced, and what more can you ask of a decaf (or really any coffee)?
my flat white, alongside a bag of Nicaraguan I couldn't resist
I’m tickled to be visiting this business in person after following them for so many years. I’ve used principles from videos they’ve published on training and service standards in my own training of new baristas, emphasizing the big-picture view of the guest experience: yes, the quality of the product is important; it should be brewed well and taste good. But you can’t view that cup of coffee in a vacuum. When you take a sip, your experience also includes how comfortable your seat is, the noise level, what kind of music is playing, the temperature in the space, and what kind of attitude you got from the person you handed your hard-earned money to in exchange for a drink. Your own disposition matters, too, and if you’re hard-wired to treat a point of sale experience as simply as an exchange of currency for goods, you might not be able to fully appreciate everything else that’s going into the curation of your time in that cafe. A service interaction involves the energy of both entities, the humans on either side of the counter. You can set yourself up for the best experience when you’re open to a personal exchange. And depending on what kind of day that barista is having, it’s true that you might get the raw end of the deal every once in a while. But if you know that bad days are possible, and you’re seeing that barista as a real person, you might have compassion for them and not let a sour moment impact your day.
If you’re reading this from the perspective of the barista, consider it an invitation to look at the service experience from the guest’s point of view. How can you curate that whole experience, not just the cup of coffee you’re holding but the moments before and after? Think about your own favorite cafes and shops and how you’re treated there, beyond the point of sale to simply how you feel when you’re in those spaces.
I’m back in Michigan now, but my Cat & Cloud visits were a nice reminder of all the small details that can add up to either make or break a cafe experience. I didn’t buy the hat (small regret), but I’ll still wave the flag of their service ethos whenever I’m training baristas.