On Monday, a little taste of Italy arrived in the heart of downtown Oakland. Named the Caffè, it’s the first brick-and-mortar coffee shop from 45-year-old Oakland coffee roaster Mr. Espresso.
Inside, the design feels distinctly modern, with an eye-catching wood slat ceiling installation, shiny copper and light oak countertops, and a polished concrete floor. But unlike other minimalist cafes in the Bay Area, this one functions like a traditional Italian coffee bar.
“In Italy, when you get coffee, it’s all standing,” said Luigi Di Ruocco, who runs Mr. Espresso with his family. “… They call it a pausa, a quick break or a pause from your day just to catch a breather and get a cup of coffee.”
To emulate that experience at Mr. Espresso, seating is quite limited. Instead, visitors stand at the wood coffee bar. There’s no waiting in a single-file line — the process is more like ordering a drink with a bartender. From there, a barista prepares your drink, after which you can rush off if you’re in a hurry, or linger at the bar for a few minutes sipping your espresso like a true Italian. This is not the sort of place to camp out with your laptop for hours.
(Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
Di Ruocco’s father, Carlo Di Ruocco, is from the southern Italian town of Salerno. After meeting his wife, Marie Francoise, in France, and having two children (Luigi’s siblings Lauren and John), the family eventually moved to the Bay Area in the 1970s, where Luigi was born.
When Carlo arrived in America, he was struck by how difficult it was to find good quality espresso, aside from a few spots in North Beach.
“It’s all about espresso in Italy,” Luigi Di Ruocco said. “So for it to not be widely available here in the United States was obviously a pretty interesting adjustment for someone like himself.”
Carlo had been working in the elevator business, but he suddenly saw an opportunity. In 1978, he imported a few espresso machines directly from Italy and started pitching them to local Italian restaurants and cafes. One of his earliest customers was the famous Caffe Mediterraneum in Berkeley, known for the Beat poets and activists who met there in the 1960s.
Roasting his own coffee was the next natural step. As a teenager, Carlo had worked at a coffee roasting company in Salerno, where they roasted the coffee using a wood fire. He brought that technique to Mr. Espresso, a nickname given to him by clients that stuck.
Owner Luigi Di Ruocco with an espresso drink in front of the traditional Italian standing coffee bar in the new Caffè by Mr. Espresso on Broadway in downtown Oakland, Calif., on May 18, 2023.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEBEST OF SFGATE
Mr. Espresso quickly became the coffee of choice for illustrious Bay Area chefs such as Alice Waters, Bradley Ogden and Paul Bertolli.
“A lot of chefs back then were helping to reintroduce the importance of traditional methods, high quality ingredients, and care,” Luigi Di Ruocco said. “… The way the coffee tasted resonated with them, because this reminded them of coffee they had had on their travels in Italy.”
Today, he estimates about 300 different businesses in the Bay Area brew Mr. Espresso coffee.
With the opening of the Caffè in Oakland, Di Ruocco and his family aim to showcase something that’s a little bit Italian, a little bit American. There’s all the classic Italian espresso drinks, from cappuccinos to cortados, but there’s also drip coffee, matcha lattes, and a number of flavored coffee drinks, from a butterscotch latte to horchata cold brew. There’s also a golden latte featuring turmeric from Oaktown Spice Shop and a Nocciola-tte made with hazelnut praline paste.
Barista Mehdi Chung makes a latte at the new Caffè by Mr. Espresso on Broadway in downtown Oakland, Calif., on May 18, 2023.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE“Mr. Espresso is not only an Italian coffee roaster, but also an American coffee roaster,” Di Ruocco said. “We want to reflect both. They both helped inform the other.”
For food, the cafe offers pastries from the French Spot and biscuits and bread from Acme Bread. There are also housemade salads and Italian sandwiches on Acme pizza bianco bread, including a prosciutto cotto with stracchino cheese and a veggie artichoke sandwich.
Before the Caffè, Di Ruocco cut his teeth running Coffee Bar, a cafe with two locations in San Francisco’s Financial District serving Mr. Espresso coffee.
But the journey to opening the first explicitly Mr. Espresso-branded cafe has not been an easy one. The company initially signed a lease for the space in January 2020, after which, well, we all know what happened. But after being slated to open last summer, supply chain and permitting delays pushed the opening back for nearly another year.
The decorative ceiling structure at the new Caffè by Mr. Espresso on Broadway in downtown Oakland, Calif., on May 18, 2023.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEDowntown Oakland looks a lot different than it did when they first picked this location, but Di Ruocco said he hopes they’ll still do OK.
“Obviously when we signed the lease, we were looking at the end of 2019, which was definitely busier,” he said. “But we’re optimistic about being in Oakland because we’re from Oakland as a company.”
He noted that even if fewer people are coming downtown to work these days, tons of new apartment buildings have gone up in the area over the past few years. And a few other signs of life have recently appeared on this block, including Latin American restaurant Bocanova and Highwire Coffee Roasters.
It was a bit quiet on the morning of their grand opening, but it’s easy to see how well Mr. Espresso already fits into the downtown landscape. Just steps away from the 12th Street BART station, on the first floor of new office development the Key (home to Credit Karma), it’s an area of hustle and bustle.
Owner Luigi Di Ruocco with an espresso drink in front of the traditional Italian standing coffee bar in the new Caffè by Mr. Espresso on Broadway in downtown Oakland, Calif., on May 18, 2023.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEHere, stopping by for a quick pause to your workday to down an espresso just makes sense.
“You may have a quick conversation, whether you’re with somebody or you may even know some people at the cafe that you might say hi to and chop it up for about five minutes,” said Di Ruocco. “… It is intended to be like that. To have a quick pause in your day, maybe a little interaction but be on the go.”
The Caffè by Mr. Espresso, 1120 Broadway, Oakland. Open Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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