Who wouldn’t love to go to a small coffee shop with a wide array of unique coffee flavors? Especially during the holidays when seasonal drink options that’ll warm you up and help you study. If that all sounds good then I suggest you visit Drip Coffee. Did I mention it’s run by all women? Now that’s real Drip.
This small but cozy coffee shop at Cabrillo’s Aptos location has been brewing hot coffee for more than 10 years and is managed by 37-year-old Gina Andretta. Drip Coffee has been on the grind since 2006 and was originally opened by her business partner, Bobby Coyle, whom she had worked with for 6 years.
When given the opportunity to take over Drip at Cabrillo’s Aptos campus in the fall of 2015, Andretta and Coyle decided to take a shot at running the store together.
While Andretta does enjoy her job, there are some issues in the past and present that make her work more challenging.
She expressed that when she first started managing Drip, her challenges as a business owner didn’t become clear until dealing with them in person.
“We knew we were gonna be busy, but didn’t know how busy or to what degree, or how we were going to adjust staff, how to set up, or how to take orders. working out the kinks just took a bit of time to get over,” she said.
“I think my main difficulty now is anything out of our control, like employees getting sick or things not showing up or vendors not coming through,” Andretta added.
Even with the difficulties, Andretta tries to keep an uplifting atmosphere and ensures everyone working at Drip is content.
“Finding personalities that mesh together is essential in such a team dynamic. It is chaos, but if you work with someone supporting the system, everything runs smoothly,” she said.
Even two of Andretta’s employees, Mayte Perez and Maddy Crosse, have described working at Drip as a positive experience.
“We both agree Drip is a safe and positive environment and although it’s a small space, it’s fun because of the people we work with, especially since it’s woman-owned,” both Perez and Crosse said.
In the past, Andretta dreamed of owning her own restaurant. But after working in the restaurant industry she changed her mind after realizing how stressful it is.
“My dream was to own a restaurant, but then you work in a restaurant and you’re like, “Dear God, I would never want to own a restaurant,” Andretta said.
But despite the stress, she still wanted to pursue being a business owner and figured starting with something small and gradually expanding would be a better fit for her.
While maintaining the Aptos location, Andretta hopes to expand her business in and out of California to various locations.
“Currently, there are other Drip Coffees in places like West Valley College in Saratoga, Saint Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco, Rocklin College in Rocklin, and Kaiser of Santa Rosa,” she said. “Our newest one will be at the junior college in Santa Rosa, so we’re spread out across the Bay Area.” Andretta added.
“We originally went in jointly to start our Santa Cruz location, but after years of working and opening stores together, we just understood how well we work together as a team. We moved forward as equal partners within the company and haven’t looked back since,”
But despite its growth, Drip Coffee is still busy serving specialty drinks to the students of Cabrillo, aiming to instill a sense of uniqueness and joy with each transaction.
“Our job here is to uplift people’s day and open up creativity, like having rotating specials and fun things that bring people in,” she said.
Andretta explained that most of her regulars usually order the same thing unless there’s a new special that piques their interest.
“How often is it in other coffee shops to have more than mocha, white mocha, or vanilla latte? The same thing over and over? So seeing something off the wall that’s different is just something that draws people in and appeals to the people and shows that you know your audience,” she said.
One frequent visitor is Maria Vasquez, a student at Cabrillo preparing to get into the Radiology program, who spends hours every day studying on-campus and loves to grab a coffee or matcha from Drip to keep her up and going.
“I like the matcha iced lattes because they taste really good and aren’t super sweet,” Vasquez said. “I like going there because not only are they fast with orders, but they are delicious.”
Albeit a small, enjoyable, and cozy coffee shop with many regulars at Drip, Andretta hopes to one day brew up something bigger than a kiosk in a few select locations while serving specialty drinks and friendly smiles.
