Philz about to take on Peet’s?
A coffee insurgency may be in the making as startup coffee impresario Phil Jaber readies his first foray into the East Bay with a new Philz Coffee store to be located at 1600 Shattuck Ave. at the corner of Cedar, site of a former Starbucks Coffee Cafe de la Paz, and just a stone’s throw from the original Peet’s outlet.
I have never tasted Philz coffee, but their web site emphasizes the “special customized blends” used to make every “hand-crafted to your liking” coffee drink, and describes their drinks this way: “The amount of beans we put into each cup is equivalent to 3 cups of your normal coffee so you will be as high as a plane!” The web site sells T-shirts and other swag, and even features a cartooned Quentin Tarantino quote about their mocha drink.
Since opening his first store in 2003, Jaber has expanded to six outlets in San Francisco and down the peninsula in Palo Alto and San Jose, and Philz has generally gotten good reviews, so they must be doing something right. And all their shops feature free Wi-Fi.
Watch out Peet’s. Here comes Philz.
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Philz is actually going to open in the old Cafe de la Paz location, in the same building as the Starbucks which is now a Crepevine. I’m really looking forward to Philz but I’ve seen no signs of construction many months after the signs went up.
Thanks for the correction. I wonder if the delay is due to the infamous Berkeley permitting process. A manager at Peet’s once told me they waited more than a year for Berkeley to issue permits for one of their downtown outlets, leaving Peet’s to pay rent all the while for an empty storefront.
I love Peet’s, it certainly beats Starbucks. However, I’m all about trying something new, especially if it’s super-caffeinated, so I’m excited to try out the Philz Coffee. I also like that they’re still small. The website and the smallness of the chain reminds me of Alterra coffee, which was my favorite when I lived in Wisconsin. No matter how good a company’s cup of coffee, it all seems to get bad as it gets bigger. I hope Philz is delicious, and I hope they keep it small. I’ll be checking them out in Berkeley, as soon as they open….
That’s a very tough location. It chased a very good sushi place out of town. Now CdLP. Other good places have fled the same building or simply shut down. There’s not really a lot of foot traffic there (from where to where would it be going)? Even Andronico’s shoppers looking to grab a quick cup are more likely go to the French Hotel. The space is quite large for a coffee place. It’s on the second floor. Nearby “urban density” housing has a cafe on the ground floor. Judging by Starbuck’s shop closings, discretionary spending at cafes is trending unfavorably. I hate to say it but I wouldn’t be surprised if the obstacle as less permitting and more final round of financing. It seems like with that building the owners really hoped to stretch out the Gourmet Ghetto just a little bit further and yet, with the dead-zone of the side-walk in front of Andronico’s and the awkward street crossings at Cedar and Shattuck – not to mention the somewhat sterile architecture of the building – it’s just a damn, tough corner win on.
-t
@GJELblogger
One thing that intrigues me about Philz is they say they brew their coffee one cup at a time, probably like the Melita drip filter system used by Cole Coffee on College Ave and 63rd St. in Oakland. I doubt they’re using the fancy Japanese vacuum setup you find at the Blue Bottle Coffee shop on Mint St. in SF.
@Thomas Lord
For the most part I agree with you. But there are also exceptions, places like Cha-Ya, which is also in a kind of dead zone a little further down Shattuck, but is always busy. Other restaurants at the corner of Shattuck and Virginia have not fared well. If the offer is unique and appealing, it will draw customers.
@Mark Haas
Cha-ya was quite wonderful, the times I’ve been there. I’d forgotten about them so thanks for the reminder and maybe we’ll save some pennies and head back there some time. They have some huge advantages, though: unusual and vegan cuisine, smaller space, less strange attitude than Gratitude, and apparently low enough rents that they can be pretty modestly priced. They also seem to have patient ownership building a reputation and multiple locations so it’s not so far fetched that the Berkeley location is subsidized by the others (and, consequently, might not last in the long run). I don’t have the impression that Cha-Ya is seeking investment capital in quite the same markets as one can reasonably guess that Philz is. It looks like more patient money than most people can afford.
I wish Philz all the luck in the world, and Cha-Ya, too. I’ve nothing against either and I’m not trying to jinx them. It’s just my understanding that inBerkeley partly (but significantly) represents people relatively new to Berkeley who might not know the history of the Philz corner, and people who are only vaguely (well, more vaguely than I am) aware of the state of things like rent, capital markets for retail food, etc. All that is playing out against a kind of romanticized background of Berkeley as foodie capital of the world, etc. I don’t think “you folks” (for some definition of “you folks”) realize quite how bad things are “out there”.
-t
@Mark Haas
I don’t need a fancy Japanese vacuum setup–just good coffee. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Philz.