Los Angeles supercafe Go Get Em Tiger officially opened its second location Monday in Los Feliz—the third coffee shop from G&B/Go Get Em Tiger owners Kyle Glanville and Charles Babinski, both former United States Barista Champions.
While to some, Labor Day weekend heralds the end of summer, such notions were impossible to consider at the Hollywood Boulevard cafe on opening day, as the sun-soaked patio filled to overflowing with patrons. The space, immediately adjacent to Covell and Home State Tacos, continues the crawl of posh food & drink along this block—offering both in the form of the already popular Go Get Em beverage menu and daylong food offerings. Coffees from 49th Parallel and Heart Roasters are joined by the cafe’s signature Fizzy Hoppy Tea, Almond Macadamia Latte, and fine teas from Song Tea, Kilogram Tea, and Red Blossom Tea Company.
Chef Ria Wilson (formerly of Sqirl, Canale) completes the team at this location along with a kitchen full of busy—mostly women—cooks, hustling out brunch-biased items like toasts, thick BLTs with Filipino-style bacon, eggs with chorizo hash, and a seductively puffy and beguiling Dutch Baby styled pancake dubbed the “LA Baby”. Lighter fare like the Adobo Grain Bowl and an almond-sage chicken salad sandwich broaden the menu into afternoon cuisine. In-house pastries by Chelsea Scott, found at all the duo’s stores, are positioned right up front, like a bursting pluot pie with cinnamon-pecan crunch topping.
As always from this crew, the focus is as much on service as providing high-quality food and drink at high volume. For now, the bar is standing-room-only, with a lean-and-chat corridor layout that encourages both barista-customer and customer-customer interaction. Doors are cast open to the wide patio—not that most of the sunshine doesn’t already flood inside—upon which longer-term visitors can stay and roost awhile.
If early observations are any indication, the already-bustling cafe may yet be Glanville and Babinski’s busiest. Labor Day at Los Feliz was as busy as any big day at the pair’s other two shops, reported Babinski—not too shabby for a first, not even full, day of business.
