Above & Beyond: How an L.A. coffee shop made a major pivot to better serve their community
Imagine for a moment that you run a business, one that prides itself on fostering a warm, welcoming, and interactive environment, only to be informed — just short of celebrating your first anniversary — that your doors must close due to a global pandemic. This is the harsh reality experienced by thousands of business owners worldwide, including brothers Matthew and Darin Friedman who together run Neighborhood coffee shop in the La Brea neighborhood of Hollywood, Los Angeles.
“It was obvious that restaurants and cafes would not be comfortable places to be for a long time so we quickly began to pivot for the future,” reflect the co-owners. Guided by their coffee shop’s founding mission, to provide a local gathering place, the team at Neighborhood worked towards embracing their new reality so that they could get back to doing what they do best: serving their community. Darin and Matthew ultimately decided to turn their brick and mortar coffee shop into a drive-thru weekly “Market” where people could safely pick up essential items along with pantry staples and of course, coffee.
Intrigued by their incredible resilience, we decided to talk with the founders of Neighborhood to learn about how, despite the challenges, they found new ways to show up for their community.
- What was the motivation behind creating a drive-thru farmers market?
When the pandemic really took hold in L.A. mid-March, we closed the shop and encouraged all of our team members to stay at home. Like everyone, we took some time to be with our families and plan for the new normal.
The first thing we did was finish building our e-com store—which was in progress, but hadn’t been a top priority since the physical shop was open and busy seven days a week. Secondly, we brainstormed ways to be of service to our community, which was one of our founding missions. We heard about a farmer from Thermal, C.A. who was at risk of losing an entire seasons harvest because all the farmers’ markets had been closed for weeks. So it began by offering our physical space — the alley and parking lot behind our shop — to the farmer so she could distribute CSA produce boxes.
2. How was your marketplace received?
When we announced our plan to our community via social media it just exploded because people were having a really hard time getting groceries those first few weeks of the pandemic. It felt like such a win-win: helping the farmers while creating a safe and easy way for people to get food, and just took off from there. Over the many weeks of running the market, we’ve seen our customers get really used to the convenience of buying more regularly at our shop.
3. What did you learn that very first day of opening your market?
The first week we just hosted the farmer and offered add-ons from our existing stock of coffee, milk, and bottled water. We learned that people really loved our drive through, contactless pickup, and that they wanted to buy more groceries than just the CSA box veggies. So by week two, we had reached out to all of our favorite local farmers market vendors and item by item just added to the store.
“By reaching out to all of our favorite local farmers market vendors, and listening to customer feedback, we carefully curated a program that best represents Neighborhood’s community.”
4. Have you developed new partnerships since creating the market?
Yes, we’ve actually expanded into home products because we found ourselves appreciating everyday items like brooms, dustpans, kitchenware, candles, and coffee makers! We started using the market to introduce our community to some of our favorite things and it’s been great.
5. What challenges have you had to overcome?
Storage, waste, perishables, vendors not delivering or delivering the wrong products, and keeping up with the demand but in all candor, the benefits far outweigh the challenges as we know the market is helping so many people.
“These unprecedented times have shown us how meaningful it is to help serve such a supportive community and we are forever grateful!”
6. How does Neighborhood’s original design and layout lend itself nicely to your current set-up?
We’re really lucky because our shop has these great big steel and glass windows on La Brea. So first and foremost, it’s really easy and safe for our customers to pick up their orders. Secondly, having dialed in the e-com system for the market, we were easily able to integrate our menu and educate the team on how to fulfill orders digitally. As the months have gone by, people are really out and about more often so the to-go business has become really steady. We go through a lot more paper products which makes us a little sad and we think the drinks taste better in our Neighborhood ceramics but, beggars can’t be choosers.
7. What has this undertaking meant to you and your team?
It’s been incredibly meaningful to resume some sense of normalcy and do what we love while providing employment at a time when many are without income. We have also met and hired a few new baristas who became available when other shops closed so it’s been really exciting to grow the team.
8. Will your market always be a part of the Neighborhood experience?
We hope to make this a regular part of our business and are in the process of exploring exactly how to make that happen. Serving hundreds of people big boxes of food each week at a reasonable price point has brought us closer to our existing customers and introduced us to lots of new ones, so that has been really rewarding as well. That said, we don’t want to venture too far away from coffee, which is and always will be the most important element of Neighborhood.
In addition to CSA Boxes, which can be ordered via countylineharvest.com, everything from the Market—from fruits to veggies to pancake mix—can be ordered ahead of time from their website, neighborhoodcoffeeshop.com
Market hours of operation: 11am-2pm every Tuesday (order ahead of time)
To-Go Window hours of operation: 8:30am–3pm daily (order via website or contactless at the window)
