Coffee isn’t just something Sarah Grant loves, it has become her life.
“I think coffee has become sort of a quest for me,” she said.
From watching her grandfather drink instant coffee she thought was terrible, to guzzling coffee so she could make it through her late-night Arby’s shifts, to becoming so intrigued by the brew that she made a career for herself as a coffee researcher at California State University, Fullerton, it’s always played a role in Grant’s life.
Now it’s taking center stage. On July 28, Grant and her partner in business and life, Scott Dedo, opened Dedo Coffee, a specialty coffee shop and high-fidelity listening lounge, in the Wrigley neighborhood.
For several years, Grant and Dedo have wanted to create a chill, neighborhood hangout where people can escape the world for a moment.
“I think we’re really focusing on just that intentional slow down. Take a moment. Put your phone away, if you can,” Grant said.
Dedo has experience with hi-fi audio, and with Grant’s expertise in coffee, a space like this just made sense. Sipping coffee and intentionally listening to music creates exactly the feeling they were going for, Grant said.
Each morning, Grant and Dedo choose what music to put on from their personal record collection with a large variety in genre and style.
“We just sort of [choose] based on some subliminal sense of what’s happening in the space and who is there, and what the kind of feeling of the day is,” Dedo said. “It doesn’t take too long, just kind of thumbing through the records, before we find something that it seems like it’s just the thing for the moment, and so we put it on and hope that people appreciate it.”
With the speakers throughout the shop that Dedo hand-selected, listeners experience better quality audio and gain a greater appreciation for the music being played.
“You end up hearing things in the music that you never knew was there. So there’s just an inherent pleasure, I think, in hearing stuff on the best equipment you can kind of get your hands on,” Dedo said.
While the music is playing, Grant and Dedo are brewing fresh coffee every day.
Their menu is simple compared to other coffee shops, Grant said. They offer drip coffee, their house coffee, which is a medium roast blend of two Guatemalan coffees, a batch brew of a light roast single origin Colombian coffee that has notes of papaya, and espresso drinks. They also have matcha, a house green iced tea, and a sparkling lemon limeade.
They hope to expand their offerings with a “simple, but high-quality” brunch menu in the future.
They also look forward to hosting listening events, including ones centered around a single genre or album, and guest speakers who come to discuss their research related to music.
“If anyone enjoys the space, that’s going to be enough, I think, for us,” Grant said.
Dedo Coffee, 2156 Pacific Ave., is open Monday through Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.