
11th Hour Coffee is a small batch, craft coffee roasting company based out of Santa Cruz, California. We believe if you have a smaller operation you can focus much more on the quality of the product. Taking coffee and life just seriously enough to create a meaningful and enjoyable experience.
Hours
| Friday | 7 AM–7:30 PM |
| Saturday | 7 AM–7:30 PM |
| Sunday | 7 AM–7:30 PM |
| Monday | 7 AM–7:30 PM |
| Tuesday | 7 AM–7:30 PM |
| Wednesday | 7 AM–7:30 PM |
| Thursday | 7 AM–7:30 PM |
Address and Contact Information
Address: 1001 Center St #1, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Phone: (831) 322-4599
Website: http://11thhourcoffee.com/
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11th Hour Coffee | Downtown Santa Cruz, CA
Reviews
On the bright side, the gluten-free cardamom cake was really good and definitely the highlight of my visit.
Coffee: 3/5
Cake: 5/5
Customer Service: 3/5
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A charming place, with a great variety of coffee beans and good snacks. Full of people working and enjoying the atmosphere. It has a beautiful backyard patio, and the room supporting small local vendors adds an even more bohemian touch.
The downside: they don’t allow pets inside. Since about 98% of the area is pet-friendly, I’m taking off a star for that. Also, the coffee itself is nothing special…
The food was somehow even more impressive than their drinks. We tried a smattering of dishes, including the tomato galette, brunch bowl, and loaded avocado toast. The galette was outstanding — the combo of buttery, flakey pastry with the salty cheese, herbaceous and nutty pesto, and juicy, perfectly roasted tomatoes was completely unbeatable. The larger, entree-style dishes were just as impressive. I loved the loaded avocado toast, which featured a very generous helping of avocado, two perfectly poached eggs, greens, and chili oil over a springy, flavorful slice of focaccia. The egg yolks were perfectly runny, the micro greens offered a lovely pop of freshness, and the chili oil really helped bring the whole dish together. It wasn’t particularly spicy, but had a great umami and deeply savory flavor — I’d honestly love to have double or triple the amount of chili crisp. The bread wasn’t my favorite focaccia in the world, but it served as a wonderful vessel for everything else. I also loved the brunch bowl, which was a hearty and delicious combo of quinoa, greens, watermelon radish, tomatoes, avocado, walnuts, and a poached egg. Every element clearly added something to the dish — I loved the crunch from the walnuts and radish, pop of freshness from the veggies, nuttiness and heft from the quinoa, and creaminess from the runny egg yolk and avocado. It was also served with a lovely creamy lemon dressing, which helped bind together and brighten up the whole dish.
To top off an already amazing food and beverage experience, the space is also wonderful. It’s quite spacious inside, but this spot is so popular that it often fills up. They have a large garden patio in the back with extra seating, although that tends to get pretty crowded too. If you manage to snag a spot, though, it’s a really cozy place to settle down for a bit. The staff is super friendly, helpful, and efficient. It often takes a little bit to get food orders since the kitchen can get a bit backed up, but it’s more than understandable given how many people frequent this place, and it’s more than worth the wait.
Now the reason for 3 stars. Baristas are commonly passive aggressive. In simple terms, if you look like a “bro” dude, you’ll probably get some stink eyes. And if you look like an artsy liberal girly, you’ll probably get treated like royalty! The food here can slap! But it’s often inconsistent depending on who’s in the kitchen. Sometimes the sauce is on the side, sometimes they sauce it for you. Sometimes a burrito is served on a plate, and a different day on a plank of wood, and a different day in a to-go box when you never said to-go. If an order has eggs, sometimes they’ll be poached, sometimes fried and dry, sometimes hardboiled. Sometimes food looks like they put A LOT effort into it, and other times it’s comes out so half-assed. There is a “protein bowl” which is a salad with literally 1 egg and a dusting of bacon that also comes with potatoes. But that potato sometimes is a stiff frozen hash brown, sometimes is home style fries.
The serving method is odd too. Sometimes your coffee is in a cup and saucer, and other times they don’t even ask and they just default to take out cups. And they go by calling out names with no speaker system. Not ideal for a large place with outside seating. So you get an awkward crowd of people waiting for drinks at the bar. And food is worse. They used to have a pager system. Now they don’t use it at all so you have to wait for your food at the kitchen. Right where all the condiments and trash bins are.
So you have a situation where people are looking for a fork and napkin, while someone else is trying to figure out where to put their dirty plate, and while someone else is asking if their food has come out yet.
The kitchen closes early! At 2 or 3 and sometimes 4 in the summer. But it’s not uncommon that they’ll randomly close the whole kitchen. A real bummer when you spend time in downtown congestion, pay for parking, only to find out you can’t get food there that day.
Overall really good place, sadly it can be reliably inconsistent.
I got the honey bee latte and it was sweet and smooth with a subtle amount of honey and lavender. I’d definitely come back
Drinks: 8/10
Service: 8/10
Atmosphere: 9/10
Value: 8/10