We’re excited to bring you this first look at the new digs for Augie’s Coffee, one of the best coffee roasters in California and home to 2016 US Cup Tasters Champion Austin Amento. They’re setting up shop next in an historic building in Temecula, California that dates back to the 1860s. To learn more we chatted with the aforementioned owner Austin Amento, who oversees Augie’s growing Inland Empire empire.
As told to Sprudge by Austin Amento of Augie’s Coffee.
For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?
We’re a family-owned company, established in 2009. Going into it with no coffee experience we failed a lot, until 2011 when we bought our coffee roaster as a last-ditch effort to stay afloat. We spent the last of our family savings account to buy the roaster and it’s been a learning curve since then with roasting and brewing coffee. Our first location is in Redlands, California, and is the red house that is our logo. We opened our second cafe in Riverside in 2013, third in Claremont in 2014, this will be number four in 2016. Lastly, I think it’s important to mention that we like dogs more than coffee.
Can you tell us a bit about the new space?
We’ll go into a historical adobe building from the 1860s that has been home to a *deep inhale* saloon, livery stable, legal services, hotel, general store, stagecoach stop, post office, school, and employment agency. Now we’ll add coffee shop partnered up with liquid nitrogen ice cream shop (from our friends À La Minute) to that list.
What’s your approach to coffee?
We buy the nicest green coffee we find, either through relationships that we have, or through dope importers we work with. After getting that green coffee, we try to serve it as well as possible. This includes quality control for roasting and brewing techniques and devices. But it also includes offering really nice options for people who are not looking for an expensive pour-over. We make any and all flavored syrups in-house, from scratch, and work closely with Parliament Chocolate for our mocha and caramel latte. The Inland Empire is not the most coffee-knowledgable region around, and we’re okay with that. We want our flavored latte customers to leave just as impressed as the person who paid double digits for a Gesha.
Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?
We’ll rock a three-group La Marzocco Linea PB, Curtis Seraphim and batch brewer, Mahlkönig Peak for espresso, and EK 43 for filter. Lots of custom paint.
What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?
We’re looking forward to opening our doors this August.
Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?
Martin & Company for custom metal work. Tabletops are madrone wood, from a single tree on a friend’s property in Oregon that we’re adding finishing touches to in-house.
What’s the address?
32115 Temecula Parkway, Temecula, California.
