(Courtesy of Philz)

By DCist contributor Sara Johnson

During my senior year at U.C. Berkeley, the Philz Coffee shop a few blocks from my house often felt like my second living room. So when I heard last February that Philz had snagged $15 million to expand, I publicly begged for the San Francisco-based chain to come to the District. Philz responded: “We do love DC! Anything is possible!!” I’d like to think I played a small part in the company’s decision to open its first two coffee shops outside of California in the District.

As might be obvious from my own enthusiasm, the handcrafted coffee company has earned a devoted following since Phil Jaber opened the first shop, in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District, in 2003. They’ve since bloomed to 29 stores across the Bay Area and in and around Los Angeles. But now, Californian ex-pats can finally get their fix in Adams Morgan. The chain’s 30th store will hold its soft opening on March 26 in the new Adamo condo building. A second D.C. shop, at The Yards, is scheduled to open in May.

Phil’s son and the company’s CEO, Jacob Jaber, explains that the company picked D.C. in part because of a strong social media fan-base in the District, as well local orders of coffee beans sold through the company’s website. “We wanted to open our next market on the East Coast, and there’s many cities we wanted to be in—which we think over time, hopefully, we will—but we’re taking it one at a time,” Jaber says.

You won’t find a caramel macchiato on the Philz menu, or even just a cappuccino. Instead, the menu is filled with names like Tantalizing Turkish, Silken Splendor, and, my personal favorite, Jacob’s Wonderbar. Drink orders start with selecting from one of 23 coffee blends—”created over a 25-year period by my dad,” Jaber says. As the company’s tagline, “One Cup at a Time,” suggests, each pour-over cup is made-to-order, which includes adding cream, sugar, or mint leaves, a signature Philz ingredient. Philz also has a few “specialty coffee” drinks, such as the Mint Mojito Iced Coffee, as well as teas.

“So far we’ve been able to convert many, many, many latte, and espresso, and cappuccino drinkers, and just regular traditional drip coffee drinkers to Philz drinkers, because they can taste the difference,” Jaber says.

In D.C., the menu will also feature food, pastries, and juices from locals such as Rise Bakery, BakeHouse, Bluebird Bakery, Capital Kombucha, and Misfit Juicery, according to the Adams Morgan store leader, Bridget McKay. There will also be free, unrestricted access to Wi-Fi.

While the drink menu looks similar from store to store, the decor is tailored to the location. The Mission shop, for instance, features tables with mismatched chairs and sofas that would not look out of place in a twenty-somethings group house, and when I was a regular, the Berkeley shop on Shattuck Avenue had an upright piano chilling in the back corner.

Both D.C. stores will have a mix of seating styles, as well as outdoor spaces. Heather Keane Leonard, the store designer for Philz, decked out the Adams Morgan space with tables made by Moon Lit Furnishings in Alexandria, Va., and seating from Stylish Patina in Falls Church, Va. Meaghan McNamara of McNamara Design in Kensington, Md., also designed a mural for the Adams Morgan shop that combines D.C.’s cherry blossoms with Philz’s own iconic mint leaves. Leonard says that The Yards location, which is near Nationals Park, will have a mix of Nats and San Francisco Giants decor.

“It’s always a really fine balance between wanting the store to feel finished and decorated and beautiful on opening day, but it’s really a huge part of our design process and a huge part of our culture to let stores design themselves,” Leonard says.

Jaber compares the two initial D.C. locations to Bay Area neighborhoods where Philz already operates. He describes Adams Morgan as a mix of the Mission and Berkeley Shattuck stores, and says The Yards embodies the shop in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood. “Those are just two of I think many neighborhoods that we think where people would really enjoy Philz,” he says.

Could D.C. see more Philz shops in the future? “We certainly have the ambition to grow and open more stores,” Jaber says, “but our eyes aren’t bigger than our stomachs, like we want to do it right.”

Philz Coffee is located at 1827 Adams Mill Rd. NW, Washington, D.C. The shop will hold a soft opening on March 26 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and will be open daily beginning on March 27 from 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Philz Coffee at 1331 4th St. SE, #101, Washington, D.C., is scheduled to open in May.