Blue Bottle Opens New Café In Historic Peninsula Building

SAN MATEO, CA — A distinctly 21st Century coffeemaker just set up shop in a downtown San Mateo building with historic roots.

Blue Bottle Coffee opened a new café earlier this month in the landmark Art Deco building at 201 B St., Suite A.

“Our B Street cafe resides in a landmark Art Deco building that has been a social hub in San Mateo’s downtown since 1931,” Blue Bottle Coffee said in a statement announcing the café’s opening that’s mindful of the buildings history, noting a cigar store, soda fountain, and clandestine hall for bookies have operated out of the space it now occupies.

“We designed our cafe with such conviviality in mind, conceiving the seating area behind the coffee bar as a ‘room within a room,’ demarcating it with tawny ash wood paneling that clads both ceiling and walls.

“The effect is like a modernist take on the steak house of yesteryear, where the right mix of darkness and warmth spotlight the immediate pleasures of coffee and food at hand.”

The Oakland-based coffeemaker is at the center of the “third-wave” artisanal coffee movement that emerged in the 200os along with Stumptown and La Colombe, among others, as an alternative to corporate coffee chains, CNBC reports.

The upscale café isn’t cheap. A cup of joe at Blue Bottle Coffee will set you back around $5.

“Third-wave coffee is a movement that has been created to produce higher-quality coffee,” IBISWorld analyst Rachel Hyland told CNBC.

“It’s considered an artisanal food, like wine or craft beer, rather than a commodity [like apples or beef],” Hyland says.

Blue Bottle Coffee was founded by James Freeman, a clarinet player who started the company with $15,000 in credit card debt. The company is now owned by Nestle and valued at $700 million according to CNBC's report.