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Santa Clara is getting a caffeine jolt. 1 Oz Coffee will soon soft open its fourth location, across from the Santa Clara Caltrain station.
The soon-to-open Benton Street location (affectionately called “4 Oz” by the team) is 1 Oz’s second in Santa Clara. The soft opening will likely occur in about two weeks, said manager Kaycee Aull. 1 Oz’s newest coffee shop will offer a similar menu to that of its other locations: both classic espresso drinks and modern specialty drinks featuring coffee beans from local micro-roasters Vertigo Coffee Roasters and Soul Work Coffee, as well as pastries from Neighbor Bakehouse in San Francisco and Midwife and the Baker in Mountain View.
“Lots of people like to call us a coffee boutique, so you can find coffee from different regions, and so we’re still keeping this focus on coffee,” owner Yulia Kolchanova said. “So everyone who knows us still will find beautiful cold brew, pour overs, espressos, but at the same time, our food items are slightly different, and the difference in ambiance is going to be just the color. But everything else in style is pretty similar.”
Kolchanova, who lived in Santa Clara for 13 years before moving to Irvine where she, her husband and her three children currently reside, said she chose the Benton Street location because of its proximity to Santa Clara University, offices such as ByteDance, and PayPal Park.
Kolchanova moved from Siberia to the Bay Area in 2008 for her husband’s job and didn’t speak any English. With a background in cartography, her only experience in the coffee world was as a barista as a student. But a deep longing for the coffee from back home drove her to open her own business.
“I was searching and being so frustrated that for a year and half I couldn’t even drink coffee because nothing was tasting right, like I was used to,” Kolchanova said.
She enrolled in Foothill College to take English classes, geography classes (to help her with her English since she already knew the subject) and business classes (to help her with her future coffee shop). Then in 2012 she found the perfect location for her coffee shop in downtown Mountain View, but she became pregnant with her first son and decided to open 1 Oz as a catering business.
“In parallel with growing my baby in my belly, I was trying to grow my first catering presence,” she said.
Kolchanova catered for several real estate companies, one of which offered 1 Oz a spot as a tenant at a new office facility in Santa Clara. In 2016, Kolchanova opened her first brick and mortar along Tasman Drive.
“I was just about to deliver my second baby when we were discussing (the Tasman Drive) location,” she said. “So when I had my baby, the Santa Clara (location) was ready to be occupied by me. So my baby was almost 1 year old when I started it.”
About a year later, the Mountain View location she originally was looking at was available yet again. In late 2017, she opened the second location of 1 Oz in the downtown area. During the pandemic, Kolchanova and her family moved to Southern California.
“I also was dreaming about having a coffee shop by the beach, imagine with my cup, with the view of the ocean and beautiful sand, so we made it happen,” she said.
Kolchanova opened her third 1 Oz location in Huntington Beach in October and said there’s a noticeable difference between the coffee scene in Northern and Southern California. She said her Northern California customers are very interested in comparing the notes of different beans, understanding how the same bean tastes different when made into espresso versus cold brew versus pour over, and are eager to learn the science behind coffee. Her Southern California customers are more interested in beautiful, aesthetic looking drinks, she said.
“Coffee is not just a source of energy … but it’s also something that gives you this moment of joy and happiness,” Kolchanova said. “This is five minutes of a day that you can be just one on one with yourself, or one on one with your beautiful friends … Being a mom, I need five minutes for my own.”
Kolchanova said she’s proud that 1 Oz is women-run and operated. Aull, the manager of all four locations, is also a mom, and her daughter Maya is known as “1 Oz Baby.” Almost all 1 Oz assistant managers are women as well.
“I think it’s also great seeing that we were able to help girls and women to empower themselves,” Kolchanova said. “Unfortunately, most tiny coffee shops cannot afford to have a young mom work. So we’re trying to be super flexible with our team so they could participate in the work and learn something and do something and have their babies at the same time.”
Kolchanova said she’s putting a pause on opening any more 1 Oz locations and instead setting her focus on catering.
“We just absolutely love it because it helps us deliver this service and product and a beautiful piece of happiness to everywhere when people may need us,” she said.
1 Oz Coffee, 549 Benton St., Santa Clara; Instagram: @1oz_coffee.
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