For more than 30 years, San Francisco Coffee Roasting Company has been a cornerstone of Atlanta’s coffee scene. Founded by Doug and Tanya Bond in 1992, the coffee company began as a love story in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Now with two locations in Virginia-Highland and Candler Park, the Atlanta-based coffee company will open a Midtown location on March 25, followed by a location in Druid Hills later this year.
Tanya and Doug Bond met in California, founding San Francisco Coffee in Atlanta in 1992. (Courtesy of Leo Hollen Jr)
San Francisco to Atlanta
In the late 1980s, Los Gatos, California resident Doug Bond met Tanya, a recent Georgia Tech graduate working for IBM. The pair, both Jeep enthusiasts, were part of the Bay Area Four-Wheel Drive Association of Northern California. Finding that they had more in common than their fondness for Jeeps, the two fell in love and eventually married.
The Bonds soon found themselves in Atlanta, after Tanya took a job at Deloitte. As a regular at coffee shop and roastery Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Company back home, Doug found Atlanta’s coffee scene lagging behind the Bay Area.
“Everybody would go there and hang out and be cool 22-year-olds drinking coffee, watching the coffee roast. And so we learned [about] good coffee. It was like you couldn’t have bad coffee. [Good coffee] was all over the Bay Area,” he said.
Aside from J. Martinez Coffee, which had a roastery in Buckhead, Bond wasn’t impressed with Atlanta’s coffee scene. He specifically remembers visiting a newly opened QuickTrip to grab coffee. That’s when the Bonds decided to bring Bay Area coffee culture to Atlanta.
“I knew what a coffee roaster was and I knew what an espresso machine was and I knew what the vibe was of a coffee house,” Doug said.
“We wanted to model [our coffee roastery and shop] after those places in San Francisco,” Tanya added.
In the beginning, there was Vinings
The Bonds developed a friendship with Cafe Diem owner Andy Alibakhsh, who had an espresso machine and knew how to steam milk. Atlantans who enjoyed good coffee frequented Cafe Diem.
While Alibakhsh declined their offer to supply coffee, it didn’t discourage the Bonds from starting their own roastery. What the couple needed was a space in Atlanta that they could both roast and serve coffee.
They initially passed on a space in Virginia-Highland. At the time, Doug said, he was still wearing his “California blinders” and didn’t see the neighborhood’s potential. They pursued a Marietta Town Square location that didn’t work out. Then, the Bonds found a former Ben & Jerry’s location in Vinings Jubilee with enough space for a 12-kilo coffee roaster and tables inside. It also featured a patio. The space fit the bill.
San Francisco Coffee Roasting’s Company’s San Francisco blend is a dark roast with notes of vanilla, dried red berries, and smoke. (Courtesy of Lisandra Vazquez)
Doug ordered a roaster from German company PROBAT. He asked J. Martinez Coffee founder John Martinez to help him with the setup. Over the next several hours, with a 12-pack of Coors Light, and making multiple cups of coffee, Martinez taught Doug how to use the roaster.
“By the time we got to midnight, we had a bunch of coffee done and then [John] goes, ‘You know what we should do? We should do some blends,’” Doug said. They threw a few different coffees on the roaster and began experimenting. Three decades later, Doug continues to experiment with coffee blends.
The first day in Vinings also brought about a partnership with Buckhead Bread Company (Buckhead Life Restaurant Group), a deal struck by Doug’s brother Mike and his partner on behalf of the Bonds. The partnership between Buckhead Bread Company and San Francisco Coffee lasted for years. (The roaster now makes its food in house, with the exception of cakes and bagels the company sources from Emerald City Bagels.)
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The doorway leading into the Virginia-Highland location. (Photo by Leo Hollen, Jr.)
Making moves to Virginia-Highland
In 1994, Doug said he finally removed his California blinders. They signed a lease for a space at the corner of North Highland and Amsterdam avenues in Virginia-Highland. Despite Doug’s initial hesitation years before, the Virginia-Highland location of San Francisco Coffee ultimately became the company’s flagship store.
With competition from Starbucks and Caribou Coffee moving into Vinings in 1996, the Bonds opted not to renew the lease on the original location. Instead, a former San Francisco Coffee employee started her own business in the Vinings space, purchasing coffee from the Bonds. The Vinings closure, however, ended up being a minor setback.
In 2001, the couple opened a second location inside Right Brain Art Gallery in Poncey-Highland. The owner, a regular of San Francisco Coffee in Virginia-Highland, offered the Bonds half of her gallery space to operate a coffee shop. Seven years later, they secured space in Candler Park, opening along DeKalb Avenue in the burgeoning neighborhood.
San Francisco Coffee remained in Poncey-Highland until 2019, when a nearby fire forced the Bonds to close the location. But this year they’ll take a leap of faith, adding two new locations of San Francisco Coffee in Midtown and Druid Hills.
Doug Bond checking beans in the coffee roasting machine. (Photo by Leo Hollen Jr)
Expansion plans
In Midtown, San Francisco Coffee will open on March 25 inside the Loria Ansley on Peachtree Street near 17th Street. The Bonds say they had been scoping out the area for years, looking for a more central Atlanta location close to office buildings, MARTA, and the city’s college students.
“It’s going to be one of those places where people come in and have meetings or chat. It’s not just the building [with] the people that live here. The customer base is all out there,” Doug explained.
At the Midtown location, expect monitors displaying the menus rather than a chalkboard. The Bonds added iconic San Francisco Coffee branding to the space, as well as local art. There’s also an expansive front patio flanking Peachtree with outdoor cafe seating.
Customers sit and chat at the Virginia-Highland location. (Photo by Lisandra Vazquez)
Later this year, a location of San Francisco Coffee will open at the Sage Hill shopping center off of Briarcliff Road in Druid Hills. The couple had eyed the location for a decade. They believe the built-in community there and San Francisco Coffee’s reputation will draw customers into the new shop.
Once home to a SunTrust Bank, the Bonds will use some of the Briarcliff Road space to produce bottled coffee and expand food offered at the shops.
“Sage Hill’s going to be a blast. And yeah, it’s a risk. [Tanya] and I like risks,” Doug said.
San Francisco Coffee includes locations in Virginia-Highland and Candler Park. Midtown opening on March 25, followed by a Druid Hills location later this year.