Construct-Outs Of Espresso: Sightglass Espresso In Berkeley, CA

The campus espresso store has a protracted proud historical past everywhere in the world, as nexus hubs of caffeination, training, and the broader dissemination of espresso tradition writ giant. A brand new entry to this storied ledger involves us in the present day from UC Berkeley, the place Sightglass Espresso not too long ago opened a espresso bar on campus. Go Golden Bears!

The 2026 Construct-outs of Espresso is offered by DONA, Pacific Barista Sequence, and La Marzocco.

As informed to Sprudge by Florent Cantat.

For many who aren’t acquainted, will you inform us about your organization?

Sightglass was born in San Francisco in 2009 and is proudly women-owned and -led in the present day. Our title comes from the small window on our roasters that lets us observe every batch because it develops. Consideration to element is what makes espresso outstanding, and it’s what shapes the lasting relationships we construct with producers and the care we take to disclose the character of their coffees. In observe which means small-batch roasting in San Francisco, shopping for by means of direct relationships and rooms designed to place the work in view reasonably than behind a wall. Berkeley is our fifth cafe, three in San Francisco, one in Los Angeles, and now the East Bay.

Are you able to inform us a bit concerning the new area?

Our new cafe is on the bottom ground of UC Berkeley’s Helen Diller Anchor Home, at College and Oxford, the place downtown Berkeley meets campus. Lundberg Design took two beginning factors: the method of filtration and percolation, and the type of our giant classic Probat.

Concentric circles drawn from our brand manage the plan and outline a protracted curved bar that places the baristas, and the work of constructing espresso, on the middle of the room. Overhead, a mechanical soffit borrows the conical form of a bean hopper, and a drum of metal and stainless mesh, fabricated in Lundberg’s store, filters the daylight coming by means of the full-height home windows. Fluted tile echoes the folds of a paper filter. Hand-raked plaster is the colour of a milky latte. None of it broadcasts itself, and all of it holds as much as the tempo the bar really runs at.

What we have been actually constructing was a palette. Each floor was specified to put on right into a patina reasonably than resist one, and to be sourced with out lengthy lead occasions. It’s a equipment of components reasonably than a template, meant to recombine website by website. Berkeley is the primary Sightglass constructed this fashion, and the blueprint for those that comply with.

What’s your method to espresso?

We purchase by means of direct relationships and, more and more, contract harvests which places us within the choice a lot sooner than a purchaser working from completed tons. We roast in small batches in San Francisco and Los Angeles, rotating blends alongside single origins, and we’d reasonably a espresso be recognizably itself than sanded down to suit a home profile.

For the launch of the cafe we created Grizzly Peak, named for the ridge that rises simply above Berkeley and our first Regenerative Natural Licensed espresso.

Any machines, coffees, particular gear lined up?

Every part sits on the curved bar in full view. There’s no again bar to cover a machine behind, so the gear (La Marzocco) needed to look nearly as good from the client facet as it really works from ours. Within the cup: Grizzly Peak Mix alongside rotating single origins, roasted in San Francisco.

How is your mission contemplating sustainability?

3 ways:

Sourcing first: Grizzly Peak is Regenerative Natural Licensed, and the contract harvest work is supposed to make farming selections viable years out reasonably than season to season.

The construct: specifying each floor to develop a patina as an alternative of exhibiting put on is a sturdiness technique, for the reason that greenest cafe inside is the one no person rips out in 5 years, and short-lead-time supplies lower freight and expediting.

The constructing: Anchor Home is LEED Gold with rooftop photo voltaic overlaying roughly a 3rd of its cooling load. That isn’t our achievement, but it surely’s the rationale this café’s working footprint is decrease than it could be on one other nook.

What’s your hopeful goal opening date/month?

Opened on Could eighth, 2026

Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you simply’d like to say?

Lundberg Design.

Thanks!

Thank YOU Sprudge!

field]Sightglass Espresso Roasters is positioned at 2169 College Ave, Berkeley. Go to their official web site and comply with them on Instagram.[/box]

The 2026 Construct-outs of Espresso is offered by DONA, Pacific Barista Sequence, and La Marzocco.