About

 

Push Coffee Forward

 

Bar Nine was founded in 2013, opening our doors to the public April, 2014. When we started, our express goal was the guest experience. From that foundational point, roasting became a natural extension to create a complete and open coffee experience, from green to cup. With a focus on transparency, sustainability, and hospitality as operating principles, we built an incredible community in Culver City. We blazed some trails most notably with our full embrace of an all-glass takeaway program, to our knowledge the first cafe to make that commitment permanently. Since then, more than a dozen and growing coffee shops around the country have embraced all-glass as their takeaway options, with more making the commitment to a #GlassRevolution. From that to solar power, a focus on biodegradable or compostable materials in required disposables or coffee packaging, we feel proud of our commitment to working to only make a positive impact on our climate as a business.

Through the years, our roasting program has been the heart of our operation. We have been fortunate to receive acclaim for our work there, from a 2017 StarChefs Rising Star Roaster to a featured service at TED 2015, multiple 95 point reviews on Coffee Review, an LA Times 101 mention for our blend The 9, and having coffee used and competed with at the United States Barista Championship for every year since our start, with original Bar Nine team member Hugo Cano last year making Nationals for the 2nd year in a row, with 2 stellar coffees produced by our longtime friends at Unravel with their sublime Anaerobic Washed Sidama and Anaerobic Natural Yirgacheffe selections from the 2019 harvest year in Ethiopia. We also turned a few heads when we committed to full year of Gesha in 2018, with a big direct partnership with Ninety Plus Coffee in Panama. People still call us asking about that Baru Gesha!

In 2020, we launched 2 new projects that have been developed with as much care and love as we put into opening Bar Nine, but this time with the great fortune of developing these with our incredible team we have been working with since the beginning. These are Pure Espresso and our 2nd Cafe, Ten,

Pure Espresso is a new, proprietary brew process began in development by Bar Nine founder Zayde Al-Naquib in 2019, and developed with our lead roaster and co-founder, along with many wonderful friends who were happy taste testers. It is a direct replacement, or alternative, to traditional espresso, delivered in a batch form. It was Pure Espresso that formed the seed that became Ten, when we asked ourselves the question, could we open an espresso bar that didn't have an espresso machine? 

Ten grew from there, and is now a wonderful hive of creativity and passion for making beautiful things unto itself. A fabulous culinary team, led by longtime Bar Nine team members plus some new friends, Ten is our vision of what a neighborhood cafe can be. Soft opened now, Ten will grow into an all-day cafe experience, with dinner and a small but specialized list of wine. We are currently making nearly everything we're doing from scratch there, from sourdough to bagels, pies to cakes, biscuits to some incredible new signature drinks built around Pure Espresso. And some fab Bar Nine coffee, along with a stellar, sound-brewed tea program.

Thank you for your support through the years, we are so grateful and are looking forward to creating beautiful coffee experiences for you for many years to come.