San Pedro resident Mark Wain admits that he and his best friend Gary Chau are a couple of coffee nerds.
That’s turned out to be a great thing for the java-loving duo who continue to expand their South Bay-based coffee empire with a new Caffe Luxxe shop in Manhattan Beach.
The growing chain’s new location held its grand opening on March 27 at 904 Manhattan Ave. with a celebration that included a free latte, cappuccino, Americano or drip coffee for those who attended.
“I love Manhattan Beach. It’s one of the jewels of the South Bay and I believe customers there know who we are and what we’re trying to do,” Wain said. “Caffe Luxxe is the representation of a European-style coffee bar where you have a neighborhood coffee bar where everyone comes in. It’s about meeting friends and meeting people,” he said.
In keeping with this ethos, just like all other Caffe Luxxe locations, the Manhattan Beach spot will not offer Wi-Fi.
“We want people to talk to people, we want people to socialize and we want it to be loud from all that talking. That creates that vibrancy,” he said.
The newest place marks the Gardena-based company’s eighth location, and there are plans to add more Caffe Luxxe shops in the Los Angeles area with possibly a pair of new shops per year.
“We expand when it’s right. We’re going to keep growing until it’s not night right anymore,” said Wain, who along with Chau are considered among the pioneers in L.A.’s third-wave coffee movement, which seeks to elevate coffee to an artisan level with brews that focus on nuanced flavors meticulously prepared by trained baristas.
Known for original artisan coffees and for having their baristas take a six-month training course at their roastery in Gardena, the pair opened their first Caffe Luxxe coffee shop in Santa Monica in 2006 after they both left their corporate jobs.
“We thought about what we would do if we did something away from the corporate world. He grew up in parts of Asia and he had the same coffee shop social experience and we talked about coffee and we really connected on coffee,” Wain said.
Brewing Passion
Wain’s love of coffee was passed down from his family who considered it a rite of passage to be old enough to drink coffee after dinner. In college Wain would spend hours at coffee bars and meeting people in Berkeley where he was studying economics.
But in the mid-1990s, when he moved back down to Southern California, he didn’t find coffee shops like the ones he loved in Berkeley.
“There was nothing like that here at the time that I saw and I thought it would be so cool if there were coffee shops like the ones in Berkeley,” he said.
This was around the time Seattle-based Starbucks was just beginning its massive expansion and also when he met Chau. They quickly bonded and started talking about their shared love of coffee and the atmosphere around independent coffee shops. They eventually sketched out plans for their own coffee shop on a napkin while – of course – hanging out in a coffee shop.
“We would work on it, sample different things and put together the plan,” he said.
After Wain was laid off from a corporate job he decided to call Chau and execute the plan. So they sold everything they owned and just did it, opening their first location in Santa Monica on trendy Montana Avenue in 2006.
From there, the expansion began with shops opening at the Brentwood Country Mart in 2010, in Malibu and downtown Brentwood on San Vicente Blvd., in 2017, Pacific Palisades in 2018, and Santa Barbara and Long Beach in 2019.
Like the other locations, the Manhattan Beach shop will serve a specialty drink to commemorate the new spot. It’s the light/medium-bodied Manhattan Beach Blend with citrus aromas and flavors of milk chocolate, tangerine and honeydew.
As far as any further expansion plans, Wain said those will develop organically when they find the right spots.
“The right place is a place that is community-focused, where there is sufficient leisure time to linger over a cup of coffee,” he said. “It’s the perfect ‘me time’ break where you can just shut down while enjoying a wonderfully prepared cup of coffee.”
Caffe Luxxe is at 904 Manhattan Avenue, Manhattan Beach. It’s open daily from 6a.m. to 6 p.m. More information at caffeluxxe.com
