Inside the Lake Oswego Cathedral Coffee location. All images courtesy of Cathedral Coffee.
In Portland, Oregon, Cathedral Coffee is expanding farther from the iconic spires and arches of the St. John’s Bridge that inspired its name, opening a third cafe this month in Lake Oswego.
The cafe reinvents a space formerly occupied by Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Cathedral Coffee Co-Owner Matthieu Galizia told Daily Coffee News the company strove to enhance the shop’s openness and elegance by removing physical barriers between guests and staff, brightening the color palette and integrating communal seating.
Inside the Lake Oswego Cathedral Coffee location.
“We built custom furniture and added barstool seating that allows guests to sit and watch us make drinks and chat with our team throughout the experience,” Galizia told DCN. “The lighting was intentionally chosen to be warm, soft, and inviting, and we incorporated tasteful murals and permanent canvas installations by a dear friend David Brunning to make the space feel dynamic and art-forward, and true to the graffiti and modern art element of both of our other locations.”
Also in keeping with Cathedral’s earlier shops, coffees pass through Mahlkönig grinders before reaching either a Victoria Arduino Eagle One espresso machine and or a Fetco XTS batch brewer with a Litmus Coffee Labs Sprayhead.
Inside the Lake Oswego Cathedral Coffee location.
“We wanted our setups to be as streamlined and simple as possible at all the cafes,” said Galizia. “We are huge proponents of batch brewed drip coffee, and are still currently in the process of deciding how we want to integrate pourover by-the-cup brewing at our cafes down the road. For now, we generally always have one of our single-origins brewed up alongside our House Blend on drip, so we can continue to offer a front-row seat to our cafe visitors to the magic that is coming out of the roastery, but in a super simple, easy, and consistently delicious format.”
Founded as a multiroaster coffee bar in North Portland in 2013, Cathedral Coffee brought roasting in-house in early 2022 with a 3-kilo Mill City Roasters machine. Recently the company doubled its capacity with a 6-kilo Giesen roaster inside its dedicated roastery in St. Helens, not far from the second cafe location in Scappoose. The Scapoose shop also houses the bakery that supplies all three cafes. Additional baked goods come from Portland-based French bakery La Provence.
Baked goods from Cathedral Coffee.
Andrew Pirkle, who started with the company as a barista in 2021, leads the coffee roasting operation.
“We started roasting at the beginning of 2022 for a myriad of reasons, one of which was motivated by several conversations we began to have about what it means for us to grow as a company, and where we could create avenues for more livelihoods on our team through what we do,” said Galizia. “Although we had been hugely blessed by our previous roaster partnerships over the years leading up to that change, we wanted to do it ourselves so that people on our team could be given the opportunity to grow into new roles and gain new skills.”
Pirkle seeks offerings by importers “committed to radical transparency,” said Galizia, with greens currently coming from Ally Coffee, Falcon Coffees, Red Fox Coffee Merchants and others. As volumes continue to rise, the company also hopes to establish more direct relationships and long-term commitments with coffee producers to fill out a menu of coffees that accommodates coffee nerds and casual commuters alike.
“We believe coffee isn’t inherently valuable on its own, although it can definitely be mind-blowingly delicious,” said Galizia. “It becomes valuable when both the people who are responsible for producing it, as well as the people who have the opportunity to drink and enjoy it, are both highlighted and honored in what we do as an organization.”
The Cathedral Coffee roastery.
With Lake Oswego open, Cathedral’s next chapter and verse will focus on scaling the roastery and online operations. A website redesign is on the docket for early next year.
“Cathedral is still a Portland-based company, as our original cafe continues to be a main locus point for most of what we do. And since we own that building we’re definitely there to stay,” siad Galizia. “We are wanting to really devote ourselves to solidifying our place in the PDX coffee roasting community through developing our brand identity and getting our coffee out in front of as many people as possible, so we can hopefully share meaningful connections with more and more folks as we grow.”
Inside the Lake Oswego Cathedral Coffee location.
The newest Cathedral Coffee is located at 1175 McVey Avenue in Lake Oswego. Comments? Questions? News to share? Contact DCN’s editors 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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