If you want to know where to drink coffee in Los Angeles, there’s no one better to ask than Jaymie Lao.
Lao has worked in the LA coffee industry since 2008, including at some of the city’s most influential shops. She was the retail educator for Intelligentsia Coffee’s Venice store, lauded at the time of its 2009 opening for its unique modular setup, which allowed baristas to engage directly with patrons.
Later, she was employee #1 at Go Get Em Tiger, a popular LA coffee chain, and served as the company’s director of cafe experiences for almost nine years. During her tenure, she helped ensure consistency across cafe locations, and supported and guided baristas navigating their career paths.
Now, Lao is an independent consultant and one of the LA coffee scene’s biggest advocates. She helps small businesses figure out successful processes while focusing on continued education and training for baristas.
Lao is also behind Saturate, a Google Map highlighting LA’s many specialty coffee shops. She even helped coach Frank La, the 2024 United States Barista Champion and owner of Be Bright Coffee in LA. Across her many projects, Lao’s work points to her deep dedication to people and community, and her abundant love for the City of Angels’ diverse and expansive coffee scene.
We asked her what it takes to coach a champion, how to prepare for challenges when opening a shop, and why she loves coffee in LA so much.
Tell us about your first cafe job in LA—what was the scene like?
My first cafe job was in 2008 at my friend Jae Hee’s mom’s coffee shop in Redondo Beach. At that time, my exposure to specialty coffee was only Intelligentsia in Silver Lake (which had opened in 2007), LAMILL, Choke, and Caffe Luxxe.
I didn’t really go to coffee shops except to study/cram, so coffee shops like those were not in my periphery until Intelli Silver Lake opened in 2007, and a good friend brought me to the store’s opening. I thought all coffee shops were striving to be like Intelli based on that singular experience—it blew me away—so when I accepted my first cafe job, I had pretty high expectations.
Turns out, every cafe in LA before 2007 was just trying to compete with Starbucks and Coffee Bean-type shops. A lot of what I made at my first cafe job were blended drinks and croissant sandwiches!
How have you seen the LA coffee scene grow? What makes it unique and distinct?
I’ve seen the LA coffee scene grow so much. It used to be that the same five coffee shops were being lauded and written about for seemingly five to 10 years straight, but now there’s been an explosion of cafes in the years that followed. Those coffee shops were the standard for many in LA and internationally for a time. People emulated them and used them as fuel for a different way of operating a coffee shop.
These days, there are shops that have opened that know exactly who their community is and who they want their customer base to be. So many young business owners are out there expressing who they are, and are finding success. A younger version of myself would have never dreamed this was possible.
When I think about what makes the LA coffee scene special and distinct, it’s always the people first and the emphasis on hospitality. When I started at Intelligentsia Venice as a barback, I saw how many people traveled quite far just to experience that coffee bar—not just tourists, but baristas from other cafes in the city. Venice is far, y’all (if you don’t live on the Westside)!
Hospitality in LA cafes is something I don’t think about until I visit cafes in other cities. Cafes are where I expect life to be happening, where people stop in before they can get on with their day, so when I walk into a space where no one is talking or checking in with each other, I feel disheartened. There is a high bar for hospitality here, and perhaps that’s an acknowledgment that at this point in the timeline, coffee is baseline good across all shops, so what sets a cafe apart from another?
Hospitality is more than just vibes; it’s what you do with the time a guest spends in the space. Are you creating an atmosphere of belonging? Are you generous with your knowledge about coffee and stoking curiosity? Are you giving everyone the same level of service?
You were a longtime manager for Go Get Em Tiger, a popular LA coffee brand, and now you’re a consultant. What are your goals for your consulting work?
I’ve always wanted to work with folks who were previously baristas or service workers, who are passionate about opening up their own cafe but don’t have the resources or training to understand how, and that’s who I try to prioritize.
I’ve found a lot of new business owners don’t have the resources to understand their business and what levers they have access to in order to shape better outcomes. One of my least favorite things is gatekeeping, and I hate watching people have to figure out things on their own.
A need I’ve identified that I’m working toward is creating systems for regular training/education and quality control in small businesses that won’t wreck a business’s budget. The trainer role is nearly impossible to have in a small business, and training bootcamps are ineffective unless you have someone to QC or check in on a team regularly.
Training is not a one-and-done thing. Many baristas are taught the motions of service or preparing a drink but perhaps aren’t ever taught the why. Part of that is because when would it ever come up—customers aren’t asking why your espresso ratio is the way it is. But the other part is that baristas don’t often see wage increases tied to training, so it feels like doing extra or more than what’s required.
But the why is what gives purpose to the menu and identity to the business, and the best version of you that can exist behind the bar is the one that is confident in their own knowledge and what is expected of them, even if they never get to flex that knowledge.
LA has the most recent USBC champ, Frank La, who you helped coach. What was that coaching process like?
Coaching Frank was a wild experience that brought us closer as friends and peers. Before coaching him, my spouse Mike had spent more time with him when we were all coming up as baby baristas, so I knew him as a coffee friend who shared a ton of mutuals, but we never had one-on-one time together.
In November 2023, when Frank called me to ask if I would coach him, I was caught off-guard, but he explained his reasons why and what kind of support he was looking for. Also, I clearly have an affinity for Los Angeles, so I wanted to support someone who shared a home city with me.
What I brought to the table was organization, feedback, and refinement. I would focus on building punch lists of what needed to be done to be ready for competition and setting deadlines (some were unrealistic, but we all needed something to work towards). I also drilled him on his technical skills because consistent, purposeful movements were ingrained in me at my past jobs.
As competition week approached, I’d organize run-throughs with the LA coffee community so they could watch his routine and give him feedback. Before WBC, we had five past USBC champs in the room, either in person or remotely, because most of them live in LA now! That in itself felt like a worthwhile accomplishment.
What inspired you to make the LA coffee map, and how did you compile the list? Did anything surprise you as you were putting it together?
I started making the LA coffee map towards the end of 2023 because I hoped to start an LA-centric coffee zine called “Saturate” (I still hope to!) that would capture the LA coffee scene today.
One of the things I wanted to feature in the zine was a list of specialty coffee shops in Los Angeles, which is so clearly a huge endeavor—I didn’t think it was at the time. I started with a spreadsheet and went through search results on Yelp and coffee lists from different media outlets to build a hefty list of 200+ cafes. I would also crowdsource specialty coffee shop recs from coffee friends.
Halfway through, I realized it would be absurd to print a zine with so many pages, so I built the LA coffee map on Google Maps. There are currently 390 shops on the map.
I was inspired by the thought that the best coffee recommendations in any city always come from a barista at a cafe you like. When you don’t know where to go in a given city, and you don’t have friends in that city, people typically resort to Yelp. We in the industry know that many places are missed this way and will go under the radar, which is such a shame. In a city so saturated with coffee shops, I’d like specialty coffee shops with little exposure to at least have a fighting chance.
I think the most surprising thing when collecting spots is I had to question what “specialty coffee” meant to a lot of people. There is, of course, the textbook definition of it, but plenty of places carry specialty coffee and do a bad job with it. I wanted to build an indiscriminate list (it excludes large companies like Starbucks), and I especially didn’t want to make it a tastemaker resource. Everyone values different styles of cafes and menus, and I wanted to leave room for that.
What do you want people to know about how the January fires have impacted the city?
2025 has already been a rough year for the United States, but Los Angeles’ food and beverage industry has suffered tremendously. Apart from homes, many restaurants and coffee shops have been flattened by the fires, and the ones left standing struggle to make ends meet.
Part of that is because the air quality—even though the skies are blue—is still hazardous, with non-visible toxic chemicals like lead and asbestos polluting the air.
I have friends who, even though their homes are still standing, are afraid to return to them permanently because of how dangerous the air and debris are. That being said, the LA community has come to its own rescue despite the lack of support from the federal government and the city.
While we’re proud of how we’ve rallied for each other, mobilization has slowed down, and what all these places need is patronage. Please support your favorite LA cafes if you can!
Many people have said LA is the most exciting coffee city—why do you think that is?
If I had to guess why people think LA is the most exciting coffee city, it has to be because of its diversity, openness to change, and innovation. Also, a lot of the coffee professionals in this city are, in one way or another, cut from a similar cloth, whether they worked at a prominent third-wave shop with strong training and systems in LA or just have shared values.
I think that as much as cafes in the city compete with each other, the atmosphere is still friendly and supportive. You cannot operate in the city without acknowledging those around you.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Cover photo by Phillip Leeroy White-Jackson.
