From their Marin County roots to statewide acclaim, Equator Coffees is bringing its brews to Sonoma Valley with a new location in the heart of downtown, marking its first foray into the county.
The woman-owned company was founded in 1995 by Helen Russell and Brooke McDonnell in their Corte Madera garage with a focus on producing organic coffee with environmentally sustainable, fair-trade business operations.
The founders moved their business to a San Rafael roastery before opening their first brick and mortar space in Mill Valley in 2013. They followed that up with Proof Lab cafe in 2013 and its 2 Miller Ave. cafe in downtown Mill Valley in 2014, continues to be expansion mode, having garnered the lease to take over the historic, circular art deco Round House Cafe, which the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy announced the closure in early 2020. Located at the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge with 360-degree views the cafe boasts some of the heaviest foot traffic in the entire Bay Area, and will serve local-caliber espresso, hot chocolate, kale salads, and avocado toast as soon as Labor Day holiday weekend, according to Eater SF.
The Sonoma Planning Commission recently gave the green light for the company’s plan to open a new café in the Sonoma Marketplace shopping center, a decision that came during the commission’s Feb. 20 meeting.
back in expansion mode after a year-plus rollercoaster ride that brought plenty of turbulence but also success with its pivot to a hard ecommerce push.
Equator Coffees was named 2016 National Small Business of the Year by the Small Business Administration and was the first Certified LGBTQ-owned business to win.
The bold move is the latest reminder of Equator’s strategic growth that dates back to when the company dealt with the fallout from the decision by Pascal Rigo, owner of the chain of 19 La Boulange cafes, for which Equator was the coffee roaster, to sell his business to Starbucks, thus ending the 13-year La Boulange-Equator relationship and gutting 12 percent of Equator’s revenue.
Equator opened a cafe on Market Street between 5th and 6th streets in downtown San Francisco, as well as cafes in downtown Larkspur, in SF’s Fort Mason, near Lake Merritt in Oakland and on Second Street in SF in the the lobby of the new LinkedIn offices. It permanently closed its location next to the Warfield theater on Market Street. Equator’s wholesale accounts include Google, Twitter, Slack, and LinkedIn.