BY MELINA DEVONEY
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE
Photographs by Melina Devoney
We featured Mo Maravilla and her Los Angeles espresso store, Kindness and Mischief (Okay+M), in our Aug + Sept 2025 print challenge. At present, we’re listening to from Mo on her latest choice to completely shut down her store—and what’s subsequent for her on her espresso journey.
We are inclined to lament the closing of small native companies, however Okay+M founder Mo Maravilla says that the tip was one thing to have a good time this time. And man, was the get together large; a line of keen prospects wrapped across the block everything of Okay+M’s final day of service on November 1, 2025.
I debriefed with Mo two weeks after completely shutting the doorways of Okay+M.
Making a Powerful Determination
Though “Lengthy Weekend” (a technique to maintain Okay+M afloat by reducing working hours) was working, Mo knew it was time to shut the guide on Okay+M. Even with a manageable four-day schedule and extra secure money stream, the each day bumps of proudly owning a enterprise began to really feel like mountains Mo not wished to climb.
She beloved slinging drinks nonstop behind the bar, however 10 years of all of the work behind the desk took a toll on her. “I’m drained, I’m not gonna lie,” Mo says. “The burnout was taking place and I didn’t need it to show into resentment.”
The very hub of connection that Mo dreamed of making labored out too nicely—each day café operations obtained in the way in which of connecting together with her prospects.
“I don’t discover as a lot that means in being a ‘latte manufacturing unit.’ I discover that means in my neighborhood in these moments between drinks the place I really like connecting with you,” she informed Barista Journal.
Okay+M was every little thing Mo as soon as wished for, and now she’s wishing for one thing else. She was itching for a artistic outlet better than rotating seasonal drinks, and to share her ardour with prospects in a format that wasn’t consistently at odds with making hire.
So, she shuttered Okay+M, in all its glory, earlier than it turned a shell of itself.
“I’m so privileged and fortunate that it was my selection (to shut),” Mo says. “I’ve felt zero unhappiness about any of this, which is loopy and delightful. … I’ve solely felt gratitude and pleasure and, actually, reduction.”
Waking up from a full evening of sleep after Okay+M’s final day was the primary time Mo felt actually rested in a decade.
A Observe of Letting Go
Mo mirrored on how a lot she’s grown since signing the lease for Okay+M.
“Nobody’s ever anticipated to remain the identical individual after 10 plus years. However I believe small companies are handled in such a unique trend as a result of individuals maintain them so dearly and with such beloved nostalgia that it’s onerous to see them change,” she says.
Mo felt obligated to maintain trucking even when she was operating on empty. “I stored going as a result of I really like my staff and my neighborhood so dearly and fiercely,” she says. “In some unspecified time in the future you’re like, wait—I’m solely going for them and I’m not filling up any of my very own cup.”
Extra indicators pointed her on this course: Rikki Chavez, Okay+M’s espresso lead, launched into a sonographer diploma and Phoenix Canela, Okay+M’s flooring supervisor, went full drive into her espresso pop-up Revolve.
“I believe that is partly the universe being like, ‘Mo, everyone seems to be evolving and it’s time so that you can settle for it,’” she says.
Acceptance gave Mo a way of alignment and accomplishment.
“I’ve fulfilled so many targets of my life from that store and my life is so wonderful ’explanation for it,” Mo says. “I spotted that I used to be dreaming up issues that had been completely different from what the store may give me.”
The one dream Mo is “pissed” she couldn’t notice was—like most small U.S. companies—offering sufficient monetary safety and employer-provided healthcare advantages to help profession teammates, from baristas to co-roasters.
Defending Okay+M’s Legacy
Mo felt protecting of the café area and its legacy. In her final stand to serve the decade-old Okay+M neighborhood, Mo refused to let the lease go to a big chain or developer. Understanding that two of her longtime staff, Arnold Basingat (Okay+M chef) and Sian Balauag (Okay+M barista and proprietor of plant enterprise City Tropicals), every dreamed of opening a brick-and-mortar, Mo hatched a plan earlier than the “vultures” descended upon Okay+M.
“I must do every little thing in my energy to ensure this area goes to somebody good,” Mo informed herself, disregarding, for one final time, her decision to take care of wholesome work-life boundaries.
She provided the area to Sian and Arnold earlier than asserting Okay+M’s closure publicly. With tears of their eyes, they accepted. They mixed their passions into the Filipino-American boutique & café, Kuyas, which is able to open in January. They’ll serve espresso that Mo continues to roast below her new model, Studio Tigre.
Mo’s Subsequent Chapter: Studio Tigre
A launchpad for Mo’s subsequent endeavor serendipitously emerged when a daily at Okay+M closed down his workshop in an East LA studio complicated. He provided Mo the keys final January, and he or she has been furiously reworking it into Studio Tigre ever since.
The studio will likely be Mo’s area for instructing espresso lessons and providing espresso omakase. With occasions and merch already up her sleeve, Mo is honing her omakase menu for launch this winter.
“I’ve so many enjoyable concepts that I wish to do, however may by no means be executed in service ’trigger that’s simply too loopy. Studio Tigre is gonna give me that chance,” she says.
Mo will serve, slowly and deliberately, a multi-course menu that includes espresso roasted by herself and different roasters, and meals pairings created by Arnold. She’ll have time to speak with every visitor and inform the story behind every cup. With solely eight seats by reservation solely, the studio will likely be an intimate curated expertise.
She’ll spotlight Filipino and Southeast Asian flavors in her recipes and serve them in ways in which make her “tickled and delighted.”
“I actually wanna play with textures and enjoyable dualities, like kindness and mischief,” Mo says.
At Studio Tigre, Mo may also reside out her ardour for espresso schooling. She’ll welcome individuals of all expertise ranges—from the coffee-curious to seasoned baristas—as long as “their curiosity is on hearth,” Mo says.
She goals to foster an atmosphere the place everyone seems to be degree with one another, and free from types of gatekeeping she confronted when studying to roast. “Doorways had been getting shut in my face,” she says. Plus, espresso schooling was prohibitively costly: a barrier that disproportionately impacts marginalized teams.
“Every part that’s me—and was Okay+M—is about accessibility. I’ve all the time tried to make every little thing really feel heat and welcoming regardless of the place you’re coming from,” Mo provides.
Mo shares that she’ll provide extra inexpensive espresso fundamentals and roasting lessons to a handful of scholars at a time. “The opposite lessons that I’ve seen, it’s so onerous to get private time to get tremendous hands-on,” she says. “And so they’re within the vary of round $5k! What number of baristas can afford that?” She says she’ll additionally make sure that college students can ask questions, and put their nostril to the tasting cup and their eye to the sight glass.
Exterior of the classroom, Mo rebranded the Okay+M espresso cart for pop-ups and is planning session companies. “I’m gonna assist different small companies make their desires come true,” Mo says. “I really like that shit, that’s my jam.”
On December 7, 2025, Studio Tigre and Kuyas debuted for a preview day of their new store, which was filled with Okay+M’s previous regulars and a budding new neighborhood. Observe Studio Tigre and Kuyas on Instagram for extra updates.
Subscribe and Extra!
As all the time, you possibly can learn Barista Journal in paper by subscribing or ordering a problem.
Help Barista Journal with a Membership.
Signup for our weekly e-newsletter.
Learn the December 2025 + January 2026 Problem free of charge with our digital version.
