A coffee shop inspired by a Mexican artist – and her iconic style – is opening in Fresno
A new coffee shop inspired by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is opening inside a downtown business Monday.
Frida Café opens at 7 a.m. Monday, Sept. 21 inside Los Panchos Mexican Restaurant on Fulton Street near Tulare Street.
Technically, it’s an espresso and pan dulce bar, operating under the umbrella of Los Panchos in the mornings at the newly remodeled cocktail bar inside the restaurant. Los Panchos is still open as normal for breakfast and lunch, with take out and patio dining.
Frida Café will be open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily.
It has all the flair you’d expect from something associated with the eclectic Mexican artist: Mexican-inspired drinks, milk in colors like pink and teal, even a logo featuring her famous unibrow.
And of course, there will be pan dulce, mini versions of the Mexican sweet breads like conchas with their pink crackly tops. For now, the sweet treats are from Panaderia Cafe Oaxaca in Clovis, though more food is in the works. More on that in a moment.
The cafe is run by Albee Sanchez, a Fresno native who graduated from Clovis West High School in 2007. He moved to Los Angeles for six years, where he managed a coffee shop for four years.
That’s where he learned about coffee and decided to combine it with Frida Kahlo and bring the concept to Fresno.
“I fell in love with her and her essence and her beauty and her style,” Sanchez said. “I couldn’t think of a better way to better represent the culture of Mexico in a modern way while maintaining and preserving the past.”
Touches of Kahlo’s colorful self are all over the place, like the little dog painted on the “doggie water bar” set outside with bowls of water. The dog is wearing a crown of flowers and has a unibrow.
That unibrow, by the way, and a slight mustache, were trademarks of Kahlo’s self portraits. It was a deliberate rejection of stereotypes about beauty. In fact, she appears to have even exaggerated her unibrow, according to London art exhibit that included her eyebrow pencil.
Another interesting tidbit? The place is a cafe, yes, but café with an accent on the e is also the Spanish word for coffee. So it also translates to Frida’s coffee, essentially.
Beverage offerings
Frida Café has all the regular coffee drinks - espresso, Americano, lattes, etc.
There are six featured espresso-based drinks, essentially lattes that can be made iced or in other forms.
The almond citrus, for example, is made with organic almond and orange extracts, raw sugar and orange milk. Fresh orange zest is sprinkled on top “so you get this beautiful aroma of orange before you take a sip,” Sanchez said.
Other drinks include a smoked vanilla, lavender cream, white rose and a chai tea paired with teal milk.
The milks are colored with organic dyes and come in shades of teal, pink, orange, red and purple.
The drinks can be made to go, though Sanchez encourages people to try them on the patio, where the drinks come in glass cups on a wooden tray with bamboo stir sticks.
“It’s all about the presentation,” he said. “You get to see the colors and I swear it tastes it better when you get to see the colors.”
There’s also a Mexican hot chocolate infused with crushed red chile and cinnamon sticks.
In addition to in-person ordering, you can also order the drinks through Frida Café’s website, myfridacafe.com and they’ll be ready when you arrive.
The menu
As for the food, there will be pan dulce mentioned above. Los Panchos will still serve its regular breakfast.
Frida Cafe will also have some to-go breakfast items made by Los Panchos, like mini breakfast burritos that can be eaten in four or five bites.
Sanchez is also looking for a bakery to make a concha muffin — a recipe he hired a chef to create that’s a modern version of a concha. It’s essentially a muffin made with Danish dough, with cinnamon or pumpkin filling and a concha-like top.
“Frida Café is going to be an experience,” Sanchez said. “I take a lot of pride in creating something with presentation. Not only does it have to taste good, it has to feel good. The entire experience matters, from the floor you walk on to the napkin that you wipe your mouth with – everything matters.”
This story was originally published September 20, 2020 at 10:01 AM.
