The new WestBean coffee roastery and cafe at 4140 Morena Blvd in San Diego’s Bay Ho neighborhood. All photos courtesy of WestBean.
A new addition to San Diego’s Bay Ho neighborhood is the expansive fourth location of The WestBean Coffee Roasters. The new space also serves as the company’s new roastery and headquarters.
Located just a few doors down Morena Boulevard from Bitter Brothers Brewing, the 4,500-square-foot facility includes a spacious cafe that seats 28 indoors and 12 more on a patio in the San Diego sun. The new location is also home to the company’s 35-kilo-capacity Loring roaster, which handles the bean load for WestBean’s three other stores, wholesale accounts and retail bags.
WestBean’s award-winning cold brew coffees flow through no fewer than six of the 14 faucets on the new cafe’s cold draught system. The eye-catching array of taps pops in bright red from the shiny white tile backsplash to offer still, nitro and flavored varieties.
“We are known for our Kryptonite cold brew, which is mint infused,” WestBean Managing Partner Andrew Karr told Daily Coffee News. “We also won ‘Best Original Cold Brew’ at this year’s San Diego Cold Brew City Fest.”
WestBean also gives equal love to its hot beverage program, featuring espresso drinks crafted on a Synesso espresso machine paired with a Mahlkonig K30 twin grinder, and batch brews made on a Fetco brewing system. The company’s Sweet Sussex blend of beans from Brazil, Papua New Guinea and Costa Rican anchors the espresso program, while single-origin offerings rotate seasonally for espresso and Kalita Wave manual pourovers.
An onsite commercial kitchen turns out fresh breakfast sandwiches, baked goods and other items, as well as all of the company’s house-made flavor syrups.
Overall, the new space and roasting equipment amount to a substantial step up from WestBean’s previous facility, smaller facility with a 15-kilo-capacity Renegade roaster. WestBean is already hard at the work of taking advantage of its expanded capacity, having recently entered into a new whole bean retail distribution agreement with Gelson’s Markets, a 27-store Southern California grocery chain.
“Now that we have our new roastery up and running we are very excited to continue to expand our wholesale program,” said Karr. “I also wouldn’t be surprised if we added a few more cafes in the future, as well.”
The WestBean Coffee Roasters Roastery Cafe is now open at 4140 Morena Blvd in San Diego.
Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
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