It’s not every day that you see a llama riding a surfboard, unless you’re spending every day at Zaca Coffee—which opened its first brick-and-mortar shop in Buellton in September—or staring intently at the local roaster’s quirky logo.
But that surfboard on the logo isn’t just any surfboard—it’s a Yater Spoon, of Santa Barbara and Apocalypse Now fame. The llama isn’t just any llama either.
“Llama Joe is our mascot,” said Dennis Patrick, who co-founded Zaca Coffee as a roaster in 2021 with his wife, Hayley Firestone. “When we started talking about a coffee company, one of the first thoughts Hayley had was, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if we had one of our llamas as the mascot?’”
The couple raises llamas and alpacas at their scenic ranchero property, Zaca Creek Ranch, located on the northern edge of Buellton. Attendees of the recent Zaca Coffee shop’s grand opening event got a chance to meet one of them, the famous Llama Joe, in person.
I felt obligated to address the elephant in the room during my mid-October visit with Firestone and Patrick. Were any of their other llamas jealous when they picked Joe?
“They’ve not said anything, thus far. But I’m sure they are in their heart of hearts,” Patrick said.
Firestone said it seemed appropriate for Joe to represent the couple’s “cup of joe” venture based on his name, and she added that the 14-year-old llama loves interacting with humans and has participated in a handful of public festivities over the years—including the Los Olivos Day in the Country parade.
“Most llamas don’t like to be petted, … he likes the attention,” Patrick added. “When we introduce the coffee to markets around the Central Coast, we will often do a tasting, and we’ll bring Llama Joe. He’s quite a showboat. He loves it.”
Zaca Coffee ships its products across the country, while its beans are available at various markets and grocery stores between Montecito and Paso Robles, including large chains like Albertsons and Vons and independents like Spencer’s Fresh Markets and New Frontiers Natural Marketplace.
“We hope our coffee appeals to everyone, … but not everyone likes the same style of coffee,” Patrick said. “We were really going for a widely appealing blend, or series of blends that are characteristic of what we all love about coffee. That deep, dark, rich, flavorful feel.”
When their relationship was quite new, Patrick and Firestone bonded over early morning coffee as a sacred ritual, Firestone said.
“Morning coffee was our time. We would just turn off our phones, we would just kind of take a deep breath,” Firestone said. “For the first three years, that was kind of our thing.”
Both Firestone and Patrick had to hit the ground—or grounds—running when they pursued starting a coffee roaster of their own with no prior experience.
“We were both coffee lovers, but neither of us had ever baristaed. We didn’t know anything about how to make an espresso drink,” Firestone said. “That wasn’t our specialty, but we knew that we love good coffee.”
Firestone said she and Patrick casually played with the idea of starting a roaster years ago, forgot about it for a while, but then started thinking about it seriously during the pandemic.
“The idea started off as, ‘Hey, wouldn’t this be interesting?’” Patrick said. “It was not something obviously we had ever done. So, we really went to school. We took the assignment quite seriously, and talked to a lot of folks, and did a lot of cupping, and tasted beans from all over the world before we chose our beans, and then the blends, and then the roast technique.”
The brand’s roasting facility—where Zaca Coffee is hand-roasted in small batches—is located within walking distance of the couple’s new coffee shop, which serves up lattes and other favorites with fresh supplies brought in from basically around the corner.
“It’s very different from the coffee you’re going to get in some of our larger competitors,” Patrick said. “So what started as a little quirky has become quite serious, in terms of the quality of the coffee, and us taking a great deal of pride in that.”
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood recommends Zaca Coffee’s vanilla latte. Send comments to cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 24 – Nov 3, 2024.