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This week, LAist decided to redirect our navigational computers from Santa Monica back over the hill and into the abyss (or what some call The Valley) to spend some time at the coffee shop that some might call the carousel coffee shop and what others may call the ironically closed coffee shop. Either way, whatever you call it, it's located here:
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf #11
16101 Ventura Boulevard
Encino, CA 91416
Monday - Thursday 7:00 AM - 8:30 PM
Friday 7:00 AM - 9:00 PM
Saturday 8:00 AM - 9:00 PM
Sunday 8:00 AM - 7:00 PM
Sadly, with all the elaborate "open for business" time frames, the coffee shop in question was closed yesterday when LAist swung by. Notices hailing "water damage" from what could only be the recent rains, the shop had been closed for a few days and wasn't supposed to be open until sometime this week.
The shop itself, when it is open, sits on the second floor of an elaborate cookie-cutter valley shopping center, covered in tan stucco, outdoor crown molding and a pair of elevators. But more important than the close-by Color Me Mine shop or the sushi restaurant is the fact that this Coffee Bean shopping center has it's own carousel!
Monitored by security forces, the carousel sits below the Coffee Bean balcony, giving java-drinkers the opportunity to get whiplash by watching the machine spin around and around and around and around. Second only to watching children get their legs caught in the escalator steps, it is an amusing and yet annoying children's plaything, turning a calm afternoon into Peewee's Playhouse.
As for the people and the atmosphere and the staff at this particular location, we here at LAist can only point you to their water damage, their closed doors and their lack of open-ness, which has sadly prevented us from giving the ironically closed coffee stop its due time in what some have called the "most awesome coffee shop coverage specifically tailored to one chain ever."
We do what we can, people. We do what we can.
