Maru Coffee

Joonmo Kim and Jacob Park met working at a coffee shop together and spent roughly three years planning before opening this Los Feliz room in late September 2016, the brand's first location. Neither had a formal design background, so the pair taught themselves from online videos and built the maple and sycamore furniture inside by hand, a detail that still shapes the room's character.

Park, a certified Q Grader, runs the bar as head barista while Kim handles the business side, and the name Maru comes from the Korean phrase san ma ru, meaning mountaintop, a nod to the high altitude origin of the beans the roastery favors. The brand has since grown to an Arts District cafe, a Beverly Hills espresso bar and a Brooklyn location, this Hillhurst Avenue room remaining the original.