After months of anticipation, Blank Street opened its first Los Angeles location in Studio City on Aug. 12. Launched as a coffee cart in Brooklyn in 2020 by former tech entrepreneurs Vinay Menda and Issam Freiha, the venture capital-backed cafe chain has since grown to nearly 100 locations around the world.
The company announced its West Coast debut in April, with locations in Studio City and Beverly Hills originally slated to open in June. While the Beverly Hills outpost is still forthcoming, the Studio City location was quick to draw lines. On Tuesday morning, dozens queued up, sometimes wrapping around the shop’s interior.
On the menu are Blank Street’s signature drinks, all of which can be ordered with espresso or matcha as the base, including the cookie butter-flavored Blondie latte, the cinnamon- and honey-forward Daydream latte and the shaken vanilla bean cold brew or matcha. The Cortado Cloud, a 4-ounce espresso or matcha drink sweetened with vanilla syrup and finished with a thick cream top, is exclusive to Studio City.
Customers didn’t have to wait long to try Blank Street’s beverages. Lines at the tech-driven cafe move quickly thanks to automatic espresso machines that produce eight espresso shots at a time and up to 700 per hour. Patrons who place orders via the Blank Street app can bypass the line and approach the counter directly to pick up their drinks.
“The line was long, and we got these drinks in, like, three minutes,” said Angela Guice, a Studio City resident who has previously visited Blank Street’s East Coast locations. “The coffee shops I love, they take a long time. Blank Street has got the efficiency down.”
Nicolas Monroe, a Studio City resident trying Blank Street for the first time on Tuesday, said he’s seen the brand’s online backlash. Some critics have pointed out that the company is backed by private equity firms and is taking over local storefronts while directing profits back to veiled corporate headquarters.
“I prefer going to one-off locations,” Monroe said, “or if it’s a chain, a chain that’s local to L.A. But this is a space that hasn’t had a business in it for a little while. So if there is some benefit that’s being brought to the community, I do see that as valuable.”
Monroe said he won’t add Blank Street into his daily coffee rotation, noting its proximity to local favorites like Yala Coffee and Lynx Coffee.
Blank Street’s co-founders were not immediately available for comment on Wednesday.
“Studio City felt right for our California debut,” Freiha said in a press release. “Beyond the neighborhood’s charm and storied history, it has the creative spirit and strong sense of community that matters so much to us.”
Blank Street plans to open two additional L.A. area locations, one at the Sunset Plaza in West Hollywood and another in Malibu, in late fall.
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