GoodBoyBob: Santa Monica's Hidden Coffee Shop
It’s hard to write about a coffee shop in LA that doesn’t have some sort of relationship or connection to another coffee shop or barista in the city. The coffee/barista world is a small and competitive world that we’re lucky enough to reap the benefits of through the excellent coffee shops spotted around the city. Remember this blog about Highland Park’s Civil Coffee? Tyler Wells, now owner of Nice Coffee in DTLA, consulted for Civil Coffee AND Goodboybob. Here’s the rundown of the full circle, LA coffee family tree:
The three owners of Handsome left the now corporation that is Intelligentsia to start a smaller brand of roasters. They hired the Morales brothers, Alex and Alan, who later left Handsome and started their own coffee cart, Civil Coffee. And back to the corporation Handsome Coffee Roasters went, after Blue Bottle acquired the company in 2015, just four years after opening. That same year, the Morales brothers turned their coffee cart into a brick and mortar shop, hiring Tyler Wells, one of the three original owners of Handsome, as a consultant to oversee the brew program. Everyone caught up?! Full circle, small coffee world for sure.
Fast forward to 2017, GoodBoyBob is opened with the consultation of our very own LA coffee hero, Tyler Wells. The coffee shop roasts its own beans but alongside their own fresh beans, they put a great amount of effort into sourcing some of the rarest beans you can’t find anywhere else in LA to feature as regularly as they can. In addition to in house roasting, another proud accomplishment is their almond milk, made in-house and sweetened lightly with dates and flavored with cinnamon and vanilla extract.
The signage is purposefully awful to keep the mystery of where to find the coffee shop alive. The space has tiered shaded bench seating outside it’s ivory-covered store front. Inside, you’ll find two plush leather chairs, a wide mid-century couch and a small seating area composed of one long hightop table. The outdoor patio is great for posting up to work and the food addition to their menu can keep fill you up and keep you working for hours. The latest wine and beer addition can even hold you over for happy hour.
There’s a ‘grill and chill’ on Sundays from 10am -6pm, daily coffee and daytime menu food from 8am-4pm, and extended hours on Friday and Saturday night give you the option to chill on the patio with some dreamy patio lights and a tucked away feel. Street parking is metered and keep your eye out for the small sign that says “COFFEE” to find the alley you need to walk down to get to this secret Santa Monica coffee shop.