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Beginning Friday, every weekday morning at 7:00 a.m., the winged walls of downtown's Nice Coffee will rise and reveal its gluten-rich, highly-caffeinated innards. Nice is the latest project by Handsome Coffee Roasters co-founder Tyler Wells.
Following Handsome's sale to Blue Bottle in 2014, Wells went on to open Blacktop Coffee in the Arts District, and consulted on the coffee program at various cafes around the city (from Civil Coffee in Highland Park to Superba in Venice). Now, three years after Blacktop, Wells is back to his own vision.
"My dream was always to open a sidewalk coffee stall. We almost had that with Blacktop. Then we got this location. There's twenty-thousand people right here," Wells tells LAist, motioning to the twin City National Plaza towers flanking Nice's stall. "It's a whole neighborhood, except it goes up not out."
Nice slings 49th Parallel coffee (a rare treat in L.A.) from their custom-built La Marzocco espresso machine, and a range of pastries including doughnuts (from Hot Fat), cookies made in-house, and croissants from Sugarbloom.
"Some of these baristas have been with Tyler since Handsome and Blacktop," a spokesperson for Nice told LAist. "He knows how good they are." Sip the coffee and watch them push out more drinks—you'll soon see why.
Nice Coffee is located at 515 Flower Street in the Financial District, and is open Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
