Compton Couple Hopes to Bring the South LA City its First Specialty Coffee Shop

A pair of Compton locals are looking to help bridge the speciality coffee divide with a new space slated to open this fall along East Alameda Street. Deanna and Geoffrey Martinez have been roasting in Compton under the name Patria Coffee for a few years, but now hope to bring their expertise to a full-fledged retail experience for South LA.

[editor’s note: since the publication of this article, Deanna Martinez is no longer involved in Patria Coffee.]

To do that, the couple is looking to raise about $45,000 on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. They’re a touch over 15 percent of the way there now, and have a nice video showing off not only their current organic coffee roasting operation but also the proposed space. Perks for supporting the project include finished coffee beans, the ability to create and name a blend, art prints, and more.

More importantly, Martinez tells Eater that he’d like to bring Patria Coffee to life as a standalone shop as part of a larger campaign to change the long-held beliefs about Compton, the city he lives in and loves. There are currently no specialty coffee shops around, and many times locals end up driving out of their own neighborhoods to seek out the things they would otherwise enjoy closer to home.

Martinez says he also hopes to employ workers at Patria Coffee who “may typically be shut out of the labor market for a variety of reasons,” and to offer sustainable, organic products to Compton directly. That’s in line with models like what Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson have been aiming for with Locol in Watts, and even more closely aligned with juice bar Tropics, which secured its own $60,000 crowdfunding goal back in the spring for a shop in South LA. Patria Coffee hopes to turn around more than $45,000 in the next couple of weeks to plot an opening in Compton for September.

• Passionate New Kickstarter Project Could Be a Pressed Juice Juggernaut for South LA [ELA]