Proyecto Díaz, an Oakland roaster with roots in Oaxaca, has opened a new cafe in north downtown Oakland and launched a bean-to-bar chocolate brand called Metate Chocolate. The storefront occupies the former Bicycle Coffee Co. location and leans into Mexican design cues such as terracotta planters and Oaxaca pottery, signaling a stronger local presence for the family-led operation.
The new cafe sits off Broadway in downtown Oakland and serves a full selection of espresso and drip coffee, plus signature items including a cafe de olla latte, coffee slushies and a cold brew lemonade. A pourover bar will showcase single-origin coffees, and the shop opened with locally made tamales, house-made salads, tres leches, overnight oats and “street-stylized” fruit cups while a more robust food program remains in development. The roastery that underpins the operation has vastly expanded capacity and now supplies Proyecto Díaz’s wholesale accounts as well as the company’s stand at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market in San Francisco.
Proyecto Díaz has also pushed deeper into origin-driven product work. The roastery recently debuted a honey-process Gesha grown in Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico, and plans a Terruño release that will be the first natural-processing experiment from the Diaz family’s own farm in Oaxaca, El Carmen. The company devotes a percentage of its profits to refurbishing El Carmen, which is run by Fernando Diaz’s grandfather, Juan Leovigildo Diaz. “The crop is actually looking to be one of the best crops, but there’s a lack of labor,” said Diaz. “That’s making it difficult to pick everything that we need to pick, and this whole past month it’s been raining pretty hard, which has been damaging a lot of the fruit. So, you know, it’s about balancing our expectations.”
Proyecto Díaz worked with nearby designers and makers for the cafe fit-out; Diaz described the aesthetic partnership by saying, “They’re neighbors, essentially. Their stuff is super minimal, it’s clean, and it has this very earthen feel to it. We saw [LuvHaus] stuff before ever before having the opportunity for the cafe, and we love them.” On social channels the company framed the opening as a second Oakland location, noting “… second location in Oakland and I want to take y’all with me. It is off of Broadway here in Downtown Oakland. This is Proyecto Diaz’s second” in an Instagram excerpt.
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Some reporting framed the Broadway shop as Proyecto Díaz’s first brick-and-mortar cafe, while the roaster’s own social post and other accounts describe it as a second Oakland location; that discrepancy has not been reconciled in public details. The opening date given in earlier coverage was Dec. 11, 2023.
For local coffee drinkers and Bay Area buyers, the changes mean more direct access to Oaxaca-linked coffees and experiments such as the Gesha and the upcoming Terruño natural processing, plus a chance to sample the company’s new Metate Chocolate in a space built around Mexican design and snack offerings. Expect the cafe to be a hub for Proyecto Díaz’s roastery releases and watch for how Metate Chocolate is rolled out in the shop and at the Ferry Building stand in the months ahead.