{"id":87149,"date":"2025-10-06T12:27:59","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T19:27:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=87149"},"modified":"2025-10-06T12:30:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T19:30:54","slug":"confidential-coffee-with-its-mexican-inspired-drinks-and-community-focus-celebrates-7-years-downtown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/food\/confidential-coffee-with-its-mexican-inspired-drinks-and-community-focus-celebrates-7-years-downtown","title":{"rendered":"Confidential Coffee, with its Mexican-inspired drinks and community focus, celebrates 7 years downtown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Denise Maldonado started working at a coffee shop in 2011, she never planned for it to become her career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was just supposed to be a way to make some money after high school, but after graduating from Cal State Long Beach in 2016, Maldonado found herself unhappy with her job as a counselor, and the world of coffee called her back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 2017, I quit my job and jumped in on this full-time. I haven’t looked back since,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n Link<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Now, Maldonado is the proud owner of Confidential Coffee, a downtown shop that just celebrated its seventh anniversary on Sept. 27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of wild,\u201d Maldonado said. \u201cI feel like the first year went so slow, \u2026 then out of nowhere, we\u2019re celebrating seven years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the seventh anniversary, Maldonado wanted to find a way to not only celebrate Confidential Coffee but also to give back to neighbors and a customer base that has been there for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Denise Maldonado, owner, works behind the counter at Confidential Coffee in Long Beach on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The shop donated seven-and-a-half percent of its anniversary proceeds to Spanish Sin Pena<\/a>\u2019s scholarship fund, which helps people of Latin American heritage take Spanish classes to help them reconnect with the language and their culture. Another seven-and-a-half percent of the proceeds went to supporting the production of a short film entitled \u201cMy Dad\u2019s A Monster!<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of Maldonado\u2019s motivation was paying back the kindness that had been shown to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, when her shop was broken into at least eight times<\/a>, the community showed up in support, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Confidential Coffee in Long Beach on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And one moment that’s stuck with her, she said, was a chance encounter in Mammoth Lakes when she met a group of people from Arizona that talked about how much they loved Confidential Coffee, not realizing she owned it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat’s always a reminder of like, I’m tired, I’m stressed, whatever, [but] it’s making people happy, keep going,\u201d Maldonado said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maldonado also makes a point of sharing her Mexican heritage through Confidential Coffee and its decor, namely a large mural of Frida Kahlo in the center of the shop, and the menu, which boasts several Mexican-inspired specialty drinks such as the mazapan latte, the rompope latte, and the seasonal matcha horchata.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A latte at Confidential Coffee in Long Beach on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Maldonado doesn\u2019t just take inspiration from her culture; she takes inspiration from her family as well. The shop\u2019s name is a nod to her older brother, who died 13 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maldonado and her brother bonded over their shared love of music, particularly Los Angeles-based rapper The Game. The Game\u2019s Instagram handle is @losangelesconfidential, and Maldonado wanted to use a play on that. She eventually landed on Confidential Coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s nice, because it’s not something obvious, [and when] I see it, I think about my brother,\u201d Maldonado said. \u201cHe’s the reason why I am motivated to keep going every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Confidential Coffee, 137 W Sixth St., is open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Denise Maldonado’s shop has become a standby for reliably good coffee and community support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":207,"featured_media":87148,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[32346],"class_list":["post-87149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/207"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87149"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87155,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87149\/revisions\/87155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87149"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=87149"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=87149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}