Inside Verve Coffee’s New Arts District LA Cafe and Roasting Compound

Farley Elliott is the Senior Editor at Eater LA and the author of Los Angeles Street Food: A History From Tamaleros to Taco Trucks. He covers restaurants in every form, from breaking news to the culture, people, and history that surrounds LA's dining landscape.

The Arts District has some serious new caffeine competition this week, as the sparkling Verve Roastery Del Sur opens to the public on Friday morning. The expansive cafe does more than just roast coffee for the Santa Cruz company’s Southern California accounts, though; it also doubles as a daytime restaurant, R&D lab, and one of the more beautiful places to hang out in the neighborhood.

Unlike lots of coffee-focused spaces around the Arts District — Blue Bottle, Stumptown, and Maru, among others — Verve Roastery Del Sur has a bigger plan in mind, and it involves lots and lots of food. Mario Tolentino, a former Chopped contestant out of San Francisco, is on to oversee a brand new menu for the roastery, which keeps plenty of basics (think avocado toast) while adding lots more, from a breakfast sandwich laced with an everything bagel-spiced hash brown, to col buckwheat soba noodle salad with turmeric cauliflower. The plan is to capture the busy workaday lunch crowds in the area with loads of salads, sandwiches, and pastries from chef Erin McKenna. The opening menu is below, and includes some grab-and-go options as well.

For the everyday coffee hounds, there are two espresso machines, a pourover bar, and drip coffee available at the quick. For those looking to really expand their horizons, Verve Roastery Del Sur will also have a craft drinks bar with its own setup, complete with non-alcoholic takes on drinks like negronis and old fashioneds. The setup, including an 18-tap draft system, was created in collaboration with longtime barman Adam Weisblatt, and drinks will be available from morning until evening daily. Meanwhile, roasting happens on a cast iron Probat in full view of the 7,000 square foot, 110-seat cafe, while an upstairs perch offers more seating as well as a private room for cuppings and other R&D projects, along with offices.

The Design, Bitches-created Verve Roastery Del Sur opens to the world on Friday, right next door to Bavel, and comes complete with outdoor space designed by Terremotot L.A. Hours for Friday only will run 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., with future hours running 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sit-down cafe food service will run daily from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Verve Roastery Del Sur. 500 Mateo St., Los Angeles, CA.

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Scrambled eggs, toast, avocado on a plate. — A simple plate of eggs and toast

A bowl of chia and grains for breakfast, with berries. — As shown from above

Grilled toast standing up in a bowl on a cafe table.

A barista letting steam off a machine from above.

Coffee being stirred by a barista, as it looks like a cocktail being made. — Coffee, not cocktails

A coffee cocktail being poured by a man in a flower shirt. — The pour

A bright, sunny cafe shown from above, with pastry case in the middle. — Looking towards the roasting room

Light brown cushions and white tables shown from above. — Comfortable seating

The long coffee bar, with grinders and dual espresso machines. — From behind the bar

Looking down at a bright, open coffee cafe.

Multiple levels for seating, with lots of bright windows.

Colorful tile and interior greenery as shown from above at a cafe.

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