At the Oslo Coffee Co. cafe in Ladera Ranch, California. All images courtesy of Oslo Coffee Co.
Summertime in California’s Orange County may not be synonymous with heavy sweaters, but a new mother-daughter-owned shop called Oslo Coffee Co. is tapping into Scandinavian style nonetheless.
In Ladera Ranch, the colorful new coffee shop led by Tina Bunkis (mother) and Lauren Woodrum (daughter) blends Norwegian and other Scandinavian references with some warmer mid-century modern and contemporary touches.
“We definitely have Scandinavian interior touches without being over the top,” Lauren Woodrum told Daily Coffee News. “We really wanted to be a unique coffee shop, stray away from the more simplistic, minimalistic coffee aesthetic. While that’s really beautiful, our brand identity is more colorful, a little more warm.”
Details such as the curvy wooden legs of tables imported from Denmark are echoed by wavy wall-mounted shapes, while pendant globe lighting and the terrazzo stone bar allude to the midcentury atomic age.
The contemporary coffee menu features house-branded coffees roasted by Lee Lizotte of San Juan Capistrano-based True Love Coffee. Traditional espresso-based drinks sit alongside more cheeky offerings such as the Viking (an espresso tonic with ginger) and a cardamom-flavored drink called the Scandinavian.
“We don’t have a light roast, which is very common in Norway,” Woodrum said. “That’s mostly because that’s a very particular taste, and I don’t think where we are, people would enjoy that so much. So we were a little cutesy in naming some of our specialty drinks with some Scandinavian-type nods.”
Woodrum and Bunkis knew they wanted to open a coffee shop before developing the brand. The latter was inspired by family lineage.
“There really isn’t a lot of that culture represented in Orange County, let alone California,” said Woodrum. “It was really important for us to reflect a lot of the family heritage considering it’s also a family coffee shop.”
In addition to drinks the shop also offers some Norwegian-inspired bites such as salmon on focaccia, lefse, brunost and more.
The cafe opened on May 17, Norwegian Independence Day, and Woodrum said she hopes more may eventually follow.
“This is just the start. I do hope to branch out to have a couple of more locations throughout California,” Woodrum said. “Not just Orange County, but somewhere we can also connect people with our heritage, and where that also offers something unique in terms of interior and branding design.”
Oslo Coffee Co. is located at 25642 Crown Valley Pkwy, Suite E1, in Ladera Ranch, California. Tell DCN’s editors about your new coffee shop or roastery here.
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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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