Sightglass Coffee, which has not opened a new location in a half dozen years, is ready to debut its first cafe in the East Bay, and with a spot directly across from UC Berkeley campus in a student housing tower, this one will be different from all the others.
2169 University Ave., Berkeley; sightglasscoffee.com
Grand opening May 7, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Regular hours: Monday to Friday, 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The bright, modern 1700-square-foot cafe will open on the corner of University and Oxford on May 7, and Nosh got an exclusive first look at the space.
Sightglass has not opened a new location in six years since it opened a cafe in Los Angeles in 2020. This new location will be the first in the Bay since 2017, when their Divisadero cafe in San Francisco opened, and the Berkeley cafe will be the fifth location overall.
Once this cafe opens, the Sightglass staff are ready for what is likely to be a busy start. The window signage has prompted questions about the opening date for many months. So close to campus, the team made sure there is ample seating and even power outlets, something not available in the San Francisco cafes.
Sightglass’s CEO, Sharon Healy, and VP of Marketing, Lisa Prange, both live in the East Bay, so they are excited to see this expansion close to their homes. Healy came on as CEO about two and a half years ago, making this her first new location as the head of the company.
“It’s so exciting,” Healy said. “There have been many people who have asked us to look at new locations, and we want to just be really intentional. The mission behind this, the community, each one of our cafes is really unique, but there’s something that’s similar in every cafe, and we’re trying to find what those unique pieces are, because we are looking to continue to grow.”
Sightglass Manager of Coffee Education & Training Megan Biolsi and CEO Sharon Healy pose for a photo inside the new Sightglass Coffee at Oxford and University Avenue in Berkeley. Credit: Kelly Sullivan for East Bay Nosh
The new cafe is on the ground floor of UC Berkeley’s Helen Diller Anchor House at 2169 University Ave., where a Shake Shack opened last week and a Palmetto Super Foods is also slated to open. The Helen Diller Anchor House is a dorm for transfer students, a project created by donations from the Helen Diller Foundation. Healy said that the new cafe is part of this project, and a portion of their rent will go back to funding of the mission.
The new Berkeley cafe was designed in partnership with Lundberg Design and was one of the final projects by founder Olle Lundberg. The San Francisco-based design firm is known for creating spaces that fit thoughtfully into their environments. Olle Lundberg was also a regular at Sightglass, Healy said.
The cafe has big windows facing University Avenue and looking out at the west end of the main campus across the street. Light streams onto the bar seating lining the windows, along with the other tables scattered throughout the airy space with high ceilings. The focal point of the room is a hand-designed and hand-built fixture by Lundberg that is 12 feet in diameter, hanging above the barista station. It looks flowy and light, but Healy said it is extremely heavy, made of mesh and filtered metal to play with the light. The fixture is at the center of a space designed to be extremely open, yet still a welcoming place to sit.
“I think throughout the day, the light is going to come through and play off of the different textures, that’s really what the intention was behind it,” Healy said.
The Berkeley Sightglass cafe will serve a full menu of standard and speciality espresso and other drinks, like matcha lattes. Credit: Kelly Sullivan for East Bay Nosh
Since Sightglass opened its first location in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood in 2009, it has been known for small-batch roasting and its direct relationships with producers worldwide. The cafes have a full menu of espresso beverages along with a rotating selection of blends and single-origin coffees. Sightglass’s head of buying and sourcing, Jose Lepe, has built deep relationships with farmers in countries where they source beans, such as Honduras, Colombia, and Ethiopia. Some of these relationships are long-standing, such as their connection with David Muñoz in Honduras, a Cup of Excellence winner. Sightglass has been sourcing from him for more than a dozen years. Sightglass also started a Women of Coffee series this year, so every three months, Sightglass will rotate through highlighting different women-run co-ops or farms.
Sightglass has also developed a few specialty drinks. The first specialty drink Sightglass launched is a brown butter miso latte served hot or iced with cold foam.
“We have a brown butter syrup, and then we actually whisk white miso paste into it,” Megan Biolsi, the Manager of Coffee Education and Training, said. “It creates a sort of caramelized effect to it, but it doesn’t hit that overly sweet note that I feel like a lot of syrups often do.”
The new Sightglass cafe in Berkeley is across the street from the Cal campus and features outdoor seating and indoor seating areas. Credit: Kelly Sullivan for East Bay Nosh
This brown butter caramel syrup was created by Caroline Lafleur, the woman behind Bouquet Infusions, a San Francisco-based company that creates syrups for specialty drinks like this one. Sightglass was one of the first partners she worked with, creating this syrup in tandem with Sightglass’s coffee.
“So they’re really meant to pair together,” Biolsi said. “She matches some of the natural notes, like citrus, nutty, and chocolate notes that exist in a lot of our core blends.”
The San Francisco locations of Sightglass offer pastries from Sunday Bakeshop, but Sightglass is still finalizing what pastries they will carry at the Berkeley location. They want to remain hyperlocal. There will also be donuts and hot food from George’s Donuts & Merriment. The Berkeley cafe is built for a food program, unlike their other locations. They have a full oven, and they’ll have salads and likely some Bay Area bagels once the partnership is finalized.
The Berkeley Sightglass cafe will offer pastries from Bay Area businesses, in addition to salads and likely bagels, to go along with the coffee company’s always rotating selection of single-origin and blended coffees. Credit: Kelly Sullivan for East Bay Nosh
“We’re really focused on anchoring here in Berkeley and showing people in Berkeley that we’re here to be here. We’re not just some San Francisco brand coming to Berkeley; this is our community,” Prange said.
As part of the opening celebration, Sightglass is also debuting a new blend called Grizzly Peak, named after the iconic lookout spot in the Berkeley hills. This will be its first Regenerative Organic Certified coffee. Regenerative refers to the type of agriculture system used to grow the beans, a holistic farming and grazing philosophy that works to reverse environmental degradation by restoring soil health and biodiversity for healthier ecosystems. A portion of the cafe’s proceeds will also go to Berkeley’s Edible Schoolyard Project, a nonprofit Alice Waters started that focuses on creating programs around gardening and healthy cooking in public schools.
To coincide with the openings of its first cafe in the East Bay, Sightglass is launching a new roast, Grizzly Peak, named after the scenic road and vista in the Berkeley hills. Credit: Kelly Sullivan for East Bay Nosh
Biolsi said she’s excited to see what they’ve been building in the new Berkeley space come to life. She was on the original design team for the Berkeley cafe and has managed all the San Francisco spaces over her seven and a half years working at Sightglass. This space will have new equipment (La Marzocco KB90 espresso machines and Mahlkönig grinders), the “Porsches of coffee equipment,” she called them, and she’s looking forward to seeing the flow and consistency come to life, while maintaining the quality that Sightglass is known for.
“It’s a different population, so I’m excited to just see how the energy changes every day,” Biolsi said. “We’ve seen the space continue to warm up as the team gets a little more comfortable and people pop their heads in.”
This Sightglass location will be right in the hub of Cal students’ daily life and community. The new space is also a chance to bring Sightglass to a younger generation.
“I’m just really proud of the team,” Healy said. “I can just feel the energy and excitement and momentum internally with our team, to know that we’re growing and expanding, and to see everyone jumping in to work together.”
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