One of Los Angeles’s newest coffee shops isn’t short on five-star reviews. There’s one from Jeff (just Jeff): “The service was quick and friendly, coffee and pastries were delicious, and ambiance was amazing. Street parking wasn’t too hard to find.” Oscar Mendoza, another fan, works through their emotions like a proud parent of their graduating child: “Cutest best kept secret that's not so secret anymore. They've been open two weeks and there are already lines out the door!”

And he’s right—Granada, in Angelino Heights, is now not much of a secret. Everyone from the Los Angeles Times, to Eater, to the New York Post has stopped by for a croissant or a cortado ever since it opened at the beginning of January. On Martin Luther King Day, things hit a fever pitch with a long line snaking out the door. In June, Granada’s proprietors, Sydney Wayser and Isaac Watters, flew to New York to speak at an Oatly conference, and while in the city, Zoomed in for a segment on The Kelly Clarkson Show—more than some of the most-beloved third-wave coffee shops can say.

Owing to a lot of the hoopla is that one of Los Angeles’s newest coffee shops isn’t a coffee shop—or at least it was never meant to be. During the pandemic, Sydney, who’s an interior designer, and Isaac, an architect, started building a new home, an ADU behind the duplex they were living in on Carroll Ave. Partway through they found out they were having a child. “The coffee shop concept wasn’t even a glimmer of an idea. We were like, ‘We’re going to put a potter’s wheel down here. We’re going to have band practice down here.’ And then we got pregnant and realized we'll never have band practice at home again,” says Sydney, laughing. (She and Isaac are also musicians.)

The couple might have approached the design differently had they known they were going to have a family—“maybe three bedrooms,” says Isaac—but the permits were secured by the time their now three-and-a-half-year-old daughter was on the way, so the design stayed as it was: a compact, three-level cube with an open-plan living area on the ground-floor and two bedroom suites on the second level. The couple echoed the duplex, built in 1939, with a white stucco finish and a cutout in the front corner that brings light into an exterior stair, which rises to a roof deck enclosed with parapets. That the roof ended up having a great view, with a glimpse of the ocean in the distance, was the cherry on top.

The coffee shop idea didn’t surface until a few years later. At moments during the pandemic, if you were lucky, there was an odd stillness that brought you and your friends and neighbors closer together. When things subsided and people started getting back to their lives, Sydney and Isaac found they were suddenly missing that sense of connection. “We were like, wait, we can still know the people around us on a community level,” says Sydney, “and the easiest, most simple way of getting people in the house felt like coffee and pastries and conversation.”

It started out innocently enough. In December of 2025, Sydney and Isaac began inviting neighbors and friends over for homemade espresso drinks a couple times a week. (The couple takes advantage of a 2019 California law that allows private residences to operate part-time as restaurants). Then on January 5, they opened more officially, but only to friends—people in music and film and design, and photographers, who were all posting to Instagram. They also made a Google Maps profile, and two days later, they had their first real customers. Then came the big day. “It was a bad decision to be open on a holiday when we didn’t know what we were doing,” says Isaac. “We also didn’t know it was becoming so viral at that moment.”

Things are humming along now with an expert running the coffee program. But as it turns out, what the couple wanted out of their living space was also perfect for a coffee shop dealing with what would soon amount to an exceptionally high-volume of foot traffic: An open, social plan with hardwearing concrete floors; banquette seating that has been great for stashing coffee cups; a kitchen island that you’d believe was designed as a service counter; a xeriscaped garden with multiple seating areas. (The home’s private zones are upstairs from the living space, and guests, says Isaac, seem to understand it’s a no-go zone.)

Coffee shops converged with the design world long ago, but there’s a homier feel to Granada than what you’ll find in other inspired third-wave spaces, because, well, it is somebody’s home. There are comfy cushions on the banquettes, a personal book collection for perusing, and layered design objects, decor, furnishings, and art by the couple and their friends. Some furnishings, and the house itself, serve as something of a showpiece for the couple’s new studio, Granada Form. But there are also two hosts who like to be on-site as much as possible during service hours, Wednesday through Friday from around 9 to 2. “There’s this special thing of being like, Oh, the owners were here,” says Isaac. “I mean, I feel that way about some of my favorite bars and restaurants.”

One guest may have gone on the wrong day. He wrote on Granada’s Google profile: “Fine vibe I guess but they’re not a fluid café, not capable of handling real café volume.” Maybe somebody should tell them that they were lucky enough to be invited over in the first place. Or that cranking out cortados, or serving coffee at all, might not be the point of the exercise. “When I really think about what we’re selling, it’s community, and our taste,” says Sydney. “People come to meet someone, and for the space.”

Related Reading:

Budget Breakdown: A Playful, Postmodern ADU in Los Angeles Is Built for $249K

In Los Angeles, ADU Designers Are Doing “The Electric Slide”

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Isaac Watters / @granada_form

Builder/General Contractor: AXE Construction

Structural Engineer: Joel Watters

Interior Design: Granada Form

Landscape Design: Granada Form and Studio Grey Green / @studiogreygreen

Lighting Design: Granada Form

Cabinetry Design/Installation: Seaworthy Woodwork

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It’s an ADU, Their Family Home, and a... Coffee Shop?