Photos by Isaac Simpson.
Society’s culinary values are changing. Profit and efficiency are being supplanted by quality and community. Great American food companies of decades past—the McDonalds’s, the Starbucks—appear increasingly mechanical and unappetizing. In their place, local, non-corporate restaurants that place a premium on sustainability, ethics and cultural enrichment, are springing up across the country.
Enter Tyler Wells’ Handsome Coffee, a coffee house that embodies this paradigm shift to a tee. During the five months before Handsome’s official opening in 2012, while construction occupied the front of the building, Wells served free coffee out of the back. This “ICP” (Illegal Coffee Parlor) became an Arts District staple and a beacon that presaged Handsome Coffee’s community principles.
Handsome Coffee is about embracing the things that make us happy—the feeling of walking up to a familiar counter, the warmth of friendly conversation, freedom from rush and bustle—but it’s also incredibly serious about coffee.
I sat with Tyler Wells on a pulled-out van cushion in the back of Handsome Coffee. The so-called ICP recently re-opened as a sort of coffee “speakeasy” on Saturday afternoons, and I watched as friends from the community filtered in and sampled the experimental batches provided for free. The front of the building, housing the traditional retail counter, was jam-packed with customers. A food truck called “Egg Slut” was parked directly outside, slanging bacon-egg-and-cheeses wrapped in yellow paper. Tyler looked proudly over the community he’s worked so hard to build, and dropped some knowledge on his principles, his itinerant past and some of his favorite LA coffee shops.
What would you say sets Handsome apart from specialty coffee shops and businesses in the emerging third-wave community?
I think it’s all nuances and details. Every company has it’s own soul and the soul of our company is hospitality. We are a hospitality company that sells coffee, but making good coffee is the easy part.
We set out here to create this community hub in the arts district, and everywhere we go from here is to establish that place to gather, talk, share ideas and spend a little time together. You show up, you talk a little bit; it’s like an original, old-school coffeehouse idea.
So you don’t want to be an Internet café?
Definitely not. We don’t have WiFi and we don’t have outlets. It’s not that we’re against it. I’m guilty of going to places and using the WiFi to get some work done, but there’s a thousand places to do that and this place doesn’t have to do the same thing.
A lot of people get so up in arms. They want what they want, and they get mad and they say ,“What do you mean you don’t have internet?”
No internet and no sugar either. Do people get mad about that?
Yeah they do, but the flip side is that we have the best customers in the world. They love what we do, and we love them. We’re providing a niche that people are into.
You don’t have sugar because steamed milk is your sugar?
Yeah, and coffee is the seed of a fruit. If you roast it properly it should have some natural sweetness.
What are other places that embody your principles here in LA?
First I’d say this neighborhood, the Arts District, blew my mind. At this little ICP, we’ve met so many incredible people here. Church & State, down the street, is probably my favorite restaurant in Los Angeles. I really trust what they sell—100 percent grass fed beef and the poultry and eggs are free range, totally pastured.
You’ve lived in a lot of cities, how do you see LA in reference to those other cities?
I think LA is kind of like the pinnacle. I never thought in a million years I would live in LA, and I moved here for a job and just fell in love with it. I got scooped up from Austin to open the Intelligentsia in Pasadena.
I got here and was just sort of overwhelmed. LA kind of needs a rebrand; it needs some marketing help. For someone who’s never been here, they think it’s all gangster rap and sports teams and crime, yet I’ve found myself part of the best community I’ve ever been in. It’s unbelievable, and now I feel like this is my city.
The stuff that’s happening here is so wonderful compared to New York or Chicago. LA is huge but it’s a little bit of a hidden gem, because people don’t know how amazing it is. We couldn’t be prouder to have this as our home base. We strongly identify as being an LA company.
Where else would you have coffee?
Intelligentsia, definitely. They have great coffee and their store is beautiful. Our buddy just opened G&B Coffee on Marathon and Virgil. Deus Ex Machina in Venice is a beautiful space, doing a great job. Proof Bakery, Fix in Echo Park.
Tyler Wells and friend.
What’s the best cup of coffee you’ve ever had?
In September I took a bicycling trip all through Oregon. We were camping out in the middle of nowhere out by some reservoir. We were on pedal bikes, all loaded up with gear and we had done 60 miles on these terrible logging roads.
So exhausted, we set up camp by the reservoir. I woke up in the middle of the night to coyotes howling, and scared the hell out of me. I woke up tired and just wanted to go home, and we made some campfire coffee that morning. The coffee was somehow delicious. We had filtered lake water, but more than that, it was the comfort of the ritual. We sat and looked at the landscape—the pine trees and the reservoir—sipping some of the finest coffee in the world.
Follow Isaac Simpson on Twitter at @Isaco525
