The Refinery

Coffee is the coffee and no matter where you get it or how they prepare it would taste the same? Right? Wrong!
Being a coffee lover and exploring la coffee scene I must tell this place is a Gem! Made with love, spirit and soul by award winning barista who enthusiastic about his work and not just kicking his time between auditions such talent rare for La!
Thank you

The best coffee in Santa Monica. If your a coffee tragic definitely worth a visit.
I am from Australia and this is the closet I found to our coffee culture.

I keep coming here though I don’t drink coffee much. Many of my visitors require coffee and seek a solid product… which The Refinery has consistently delivered over the few years they’ve been open.
CB2 furniture, low light, hipster staff — generally nice despite oozing with douchiness through no effort of their own… or so I think. The hours are atrocious for a coffee shop. The combination of staffing and being hardly open reminds of being in South America or Europe… where the same characters would definitely be part of the double-​digit unemployment rate.
A quality coffee… I cannot deny — have a machine serve it to me and you’d have 5 stars.

Cute and hip coffee place located on a busy street.
Was originally walking to Philz, but backtracked because I liked the vibe a lot more here. The café is definitely hip — with all the modern paintings and wall deco but also industrial because of the metal/​concrete/​wood tables and chairs. Walked in mid day on a Saturday and thankfully it wasn’t packed, since I wanted to get some work done.
I ordered a Vietnamese Latte & a Cold brew for the bf. The Vietnamese latte is not the same as a Vietnamese iced coffee! For both drinks, it came out to be $ 9, which is pretty standard for two drinks at any coffee place. Since it wasn’t busy, the drinks came out super quick.
I really enjoyed the Vietnamese Latte though. This drink has espresso, milk and condensed milk — surprisingly it wasn’t as sweet as I imagined. The espresso balances out the sweetness so it’s good! The cold brew was good too. Their cold brew is more on the bitter side. If you don’t like bitter, I suggest you add more ice but I liked it since it was deep, dark and rich.
There was one barista that was really nice and outgoing here. The other one was helpful but I wish he smiled a little more. Haha.
This is a good place to study though. Even though it’s on a main street, it isn’t as loud as I thought it would be. I’d definitely come back if I was in the area.

Jetlagged, I looked up the best coffee places in Santa Monica at 4am and found The Refinery through Beanhunter. Drove there the next day and, boy, was it worthwhile. Tried to order a piccolo but that didn’t seem to translate so I ended up with a cortada. Staff were very helpful and friendly — a pleasure to deal with.
I also picked up some chocolate and salami sticks. Unfortunately I found the same salami sticks 5 min later at Whole Foods for 30% less.
Would definitely recommend The Refinery for their coffee — excellent!

Barista asked me if I wanted «MILK» in my «americano» … What kind of establishment is this???
Great coffee for the price. $ 3
Nice chill environment as well

My favorite coffee in santa monica & los angeles area. I love their roast & they really make a great cappuccino. The baristas are friendly & very professional. I’ve also tried their pour over & iced lattes. Everything is balanced & perfect. The cappuccino is superb.

This place is super adorable. The guy here will make shapes in your coffee they made a heart in my coffee

The Refinery was an awesome little, local coffee and tea shop in LA. I needed a spot to wait for a friend while in LA and she suggested here.
Although I LOVE coffee, I felt over-​caffinated already so I opted for the green tea, with less caffeine. They used tea leaves and let it steep for 4 minutes. Overall the cup of tea was unfettered with bitterness from tea leaf residue but clear, strong and hot. It was delicious and just what I needed!
Because I hadn’t eaten in a while (airport food– blah) I also munched on one of their local energy bars. It was a much-​needed pick me up and a clean food snack.
One added extra was the compostable cups– it was evident they were an earth conscious place, which I appreciated! I used their bar on the side of the shop to do some work with their free wi-​fi (password: light roast) and was able to charge my electronics.
Customer service was great as well. They were kind and accommodating, even at closing. I will definitely return the next time I am in the area!

Came here for a latte and just shoot the shit with Peter before hitting to the beach. We worked on some of my zine. Decent prices and good customer service.

There is a time and place for sad gas station and SB coffee. For instance if I’ve given up on appreciating flavor or culture or just generally don’t care what I put in my body. However for the remainder of the year I prefer The Refinery.
Definitely my favorite coffee shop in LA and for most of the US now that I think of it. The guy (s) that work behind the counter genuinely care about creating an excellent cup each and every time I’ve been here, which is increasing daily. I’ve been coming here over the past 4 months and the honeymoon feeling hasn’t waned in the slightest!
It’s a cool environment and in a good location with a pleasant and mostly small crowd but honestly I only come here for the coffee. It’s a bit of a walk from my regular commute but well worth it.
I recommend getting a cup and sitting down and drinking it in the store out of ceramic. Definitely a much better experience and flavor than a cup to go. But no worries, I get a cup to go ⁹⁄₁₀ times, second recommendation is if you do get it to go drink it without the lid. You’ll experience more flavor which may not sound appealing if you’ve been brainwashed to think low quality coffee is an acceptable thing to drink more than occasionally.
Go here and see for yourself.

Love: matcha latte, ambience, plugs.
Hate: the super slow wifi (less than 0.1 Mbps). I’ve had faster wifi on remote desert islands. There were a dozen laptops in here and everyone was struggling. They need to fix that if they want to be a go-​to coworking spot.

A solid, quiet café near the busy 3^rd st. The cold brew was excellent — not sour at all! It tastes so heavenly with added almond milk, free of charge!
The Refinery is also a great place to get work done. There are plenty of outlets and seating when I was here. What’s interesting is this place is almost like a mom and pop café because the baristas seem to know all the visitors coming by to get coffee!
I’ll be back when I need to get work done!

I had high expectations for this place as I was excited from reading the reviews and they served a Cortado.
I’m betting it may be better other days where they have more staffing. He was a one-​man show with a packed house and at least 15 people in line to order their dark liquid gold. This can totally affect the quality of the preparation of the beverage. Also, the price for these beverages are on the high end, but it seems to be the going rate of the Cortados everywhere in this area. To add, I did not order «to-​go» and seeing a cortado in a «to-​go» cup is a bit depressing to see as it needs to be in it’s proper glassware.
We ordered the Macha Green Tea Latte and the Cortado. The Macha Green Tea Latte was delicious, however, the Cortado was not in the right ratio. It was extremely milky in flavor and lost all the espresso taste. This made the espresso more of a latte.
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Watch the video here:
Featured: Toasted Lavender Cappuccino (fruity, lavender (obviously), sweet)
Latte (rich, smooth)
Got Califia almond milk with both. Ritual, organic coffee.
Yaro is one of the friendliest, most knowledgeable coffee artists in town.

If you want to feel like the star on a Hollywood TV or movie set then you must get at least one cup of coffee at The Refiners in Santa Monica. The two dashing men behind the counter do the most to convince you that there’s a camera and director nearby capturing the action. Both are charismatic and passionate about coffee & tea. They are also inviting and eager to attend to everyone (all the cameo actors) who come through the doors. To any hopeful screenwriters or producers out there, please make The Refinery the focus of a sitcom and cast the current staff.
The coffee and tea choices are excellent. It’s fun to browse the assorted gourmet specialty snacks that are sparsely shelves on the walls and survey the original artwork on the walls.

Cute little café. Ordered the Hot Lavendar Cappuccino for $ 5. Apparently, this is an El Salvadorian coffee shop since their coffee beans are from there.
I personally loved the drink I ordered because I love anything with a flowery flavor to it. Lavendar, rose, jasmine, etc. Therefore, I thought this cappuccino was good. It wasn’t too sweet and it was just the perfect amount.
The interior of the café is very clean and filled with a bunch of wooden furniture. It is also pretty close to the beach and the shops so it is located in a pretty convenient spot.
The workers are also very friendly and knowledgable of their coffees. They can describe their coffee in detail if you ask them about it. It was just really difficult to understand what they were saying since they had a very heavy El Salvadorian (I’m assuming) accent. Nonetheless, they were very friendly and great customer service!

Cool and quiet place that distinguishes itself from the many coffee shops in the are not only because of its quiet athmosphere that is emphasized by the type of slow jazz music they are playing (at a very pleasant volume) but also because they provide WIFI and outlets at the same time which had become increasingly hard to find in this area! All coffee shops seem to be so afraid that customers might stay too ling, so they either blocked their outlets (e.g. Intelligentsia on Abbot Kinney and Café Cielo on SM Main) or don’t provide Internet (café Luxxe on Montana), or either of both (Urth Café on Montana). Congrats Refinery that you allow guests to work on their computers while sipping their coffee, even if it’s for a prolonged time!
Coffee here is delicious BTW, and staff very friendly!

I was shopping in the area and needed a hit of caffeine. I wondered into The Refinery knowing I was in for a treat. You know how you can just tell? Anyway, I ordered a caramel latte because they did not have a vanilla one. I’m not complaining, it was delicious. My friend had the Vietnamese coffee which she loved. Our hot drinks were expertly made and served in lovely glass cups embossed with bumble bees. I loved that.
Our barista was friendly and seemed genuinely interested in chatting with us about our day. Normally, I hate small talk, but this time, I didn’t mind. No coffee snob behind the counter here. Just good customer service. We enjoyed our coffee at a large round table inside the coffeehouse. It was all rather pleasing. All in all, The Refinery is an exceptional spot to grab a cup of Joe.
«What do you want?»
«Just coffee. Black — like my soul.»
― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

The barista behind the is killing it! With a line several people deep he is rockin’ the cashier and the espresso bar all by himself. And he’s friendly. Superb job, sir.
This café is pleasant and pretty chill. There are some people working and others who are in meetings. It’s clean and well designed. It has a slightly upscale yet hipstery approachable feel. This is my second time here and I’d come way more often if it were closer to home.
Coffee is strong and the teas are good too. The pastries are okay. I had to exchange a pretty bizarre «blueberry» muffin (which had a glue-​like purple substance inside) for a flaky strawberry thing.
Overall though, this place rocks. Super friendly staff and a nice location four blocks from the beach. Appropriate clientele for the area (read: few tourists, if any).
Pro tip: don’t mess with street parking. park in one of the city parking structures. First 90 mins are free and i always find a spot. There are two within a block of this place: one on fourth and Broadway and another on fourth and Santa Monica.