Four new locally-owned coffee places are open in Fresno, from roasters to coffee shops
The big boys – Starbucks and Dutch Bros Coffee – seem to get all the attention lately.
But there’s a little boom of locally owned coffee businesses happening in Fresno.
In recent months, local entrepreneurs have launched a new food truck specializing in coffee and other drinks, a mobile coffee business rooted in southwest Fresno, and a coffee shop serving coffee from Yemen.
And a roaster founded last year has expanded to farmers markets and is selling its coffee at local coffee shops.
Here’s a look at who is doing what and where you can get their coffee.
Clash Coffee Boba
This is a food trailer serving coffee, boba, lemonade and other drinks that’s usually parked at Blackstone and Shaw avenues on weekdays.
It’s part drive-thru (yes, you can drive right up to it) and also takes walk-up orders in the parking lot of Lifestyle Furniture. A second window will soon be installed so walkers don’t have to worry about cars.
Clash has all the popular coffee drinks – lattes, cappuccinos, etc., – along with seasonal holiday drinks like an eggnog latte. The coffee in their drinks comes from local roaster and downtown coffee shop Valparaiso.
Clash’s menu is a bit more creative than other coffee shops. For instance, you can can get boba in your iced coffee or lemonade made from actual lemons, or order a Vietnamese coffee sweetened with condensed milk.
The drinks get the creative treatment with various flavors and fresh fruit mixed in (hence the name Clash).
They also use all-natural extracts for flavors instead of the typical Torani syrups.
Clash is a family affair with six members of the Beukers family working there, along with one longtime friend who might as well be family.
Longtime Fresnans might know Bill and Teresa Beukers from his time as a Washington Union football coach, or when they opened the restaurant Rhema in northeast Fresno.
Details: Find them at Blackstone and Shaw avenues from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. They do special events on weekends. Follow them on Instagram, TikTok or Facebook to find out where they’ll be.
Q29 Roastery
This is a growing coffee roaster in southeast Fresno that provides its coffee to several local coffee shops and sells at local farmers markets. It’s also launching a coffee truck.
Q29 specializes in high-end single origin coffee, much of it from the Middle East.
It’s the type of coffee you want to drink without cream or sugar so you can taste all the flavors, said owner Hamzeh Mahmoud.
“We use the specialty-grade beans, single origins, natural flavors – chocolaty, nutty, some floral notes –,” he said. “It’s a different kind of treat than your run-of-the-mill Starbucks.”
You can try the coffee at Collect Coffee Bar at Campus Pointe, The Waffle Shop, and Yava Bakery when it opens soon at Palm and Nees avenues.
You can also buy coffee beans direct from Q29 via a subscription service on its website. In addition to its regular offerings, it also sells a monthly high-end coffee.
Q29 also goes to farmers markets, selling cups of its coffee, beans and bottles of cold brew. You can find them at the River Park Farmers Market on Tuesdays and Saturdays, Fort Washington Farmers Market on Sunday mornings, and some Harlan Ranch Fresh Markets on Wednesday evenings.
The name, Q29, is a reference to a passage in the Quran, said Mahmoud.
“It’s talking about keeping your faith through trials and tribulations,” he said.
Mahmoud, who is Palestinian, got into coffee roasting when he lived in Jordan. He started roasting coffee in his living room doing 2-pound batches. Now Q29 operates out of a commercial roasting space, Mahmoud has two partners and a growing wholesale operation.
The coffee truck is Q29’s next project and should open sometime next year.
Details: You can find the coffee at the farmers markets and restaurants mentioned above, or buy it online at www.Q29roastery.com. Or, follow them on Instagram or Facebook.
West Native Coffee
This is a mobile coffee cart business with a strong connection to southwest Fresno.
It sells mocha and vanilla lattes, cappuccinos and other drinks. One popular favorite? The sweet cinnamon latte.
It uses coffee from Fulton Street Coffee, the owner of which is also a partner in West Native Coffee.
The West Native cart is available for hire for special events. You may have seen it at recent Art Hop events.
“Our target is southwest Fresno especially,” said owner Aaron Frisby. “That’s where I grew up. That’s where I’m from.”
The name West Native Coffee is a reference to being a native of southwest Fresno.
But there’s a lot more than coffee going on here.
It’s just him for now, but Frisby wants to eventually hire employees from southwest Fresno, which has a dismal hiring rate, he said.
He plans to open a brick-and-mortar coffee shop because the neighborhood barely has any, he noted.
And he dreams of partnering with the city, perhaps opening in conjunction with a library so the business can focus on education and literacy too.
Details: Follow West Native Coffee on Instagram to see where they will be. To hire the coffee cart, email Frisby at aaron@westnative.coffee.
Bab Al-Yemen Cafe
Of course, no discussion of local coffee places would be complete without new locally owned coffee shop Bab Al-Yemen Cafe.
Regular readers will remember our full feature on the shop last month.
Bab Al-Yemen Cafe opened in late October on West Shaw Avenue, near Marks Avenue, in between The Curry Pizza Company and Triangle Drive In Burgers.
It serves Yemeni coffee prepared in the Turkish style, heated on a pot on the stovetop.
Its coffee often includes cardamom, ginger and cinnamon.
The shop also carries American coffee drinks like lattes, teas and cascara. That’s the husk of the coffee bean boiled in water to prepare a sort of tea with a slight fruity flavor that is low in caffeine.
Bab Al-Yemen also serves several kinds of pastries.
Details: Bab Al-Yemen Cafe is at 3173 W. Shaw Ave. Hours: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturdays, and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays.
