Coffee lovers, and especially the femmes, are officially road stalking Lady Falcon Coffee Club, the new mobile java truck pouring delicious brews around San Francisco.
While honing her management chops at her Ocean Beach restaurants Beachside and Java Beach Cafe, restaurateur Buffy Maguire has also spent several years experimenting with and learning about coffee. But she kept noticing the heavy male influence in coffee culture—the uniform brown paper bags, the typically dude roasters, those cups of "joe"—and felt a need to show coffee's more sensual side. And so it is, with a taste-first (versus a science-first) approach, that she rolled out Lady Falcon, a softer, sassier coffee brand.
Lady Falcon proprietress Buffy Maguire and her cutest coffee truck ever. (Photo by Sarah Chorey)
While spending time experimenting with roasting at a collective in Berkeley, she spotted an old 1948 bread truck in the parking lot, owned by a fellow roaster who happened to be moving away. She sprung on the chance to buy it, with visions of refurbishment swirling in her head. Over the next 18 months, she enlisted artists and makers in West Oakland to help contribute to the truck's build out; she opted for old-school vibes on the outside and a pristine, vibrant teal interior fitted with a seafoam-green La Marzocco espresso machine—a perfect juxtaposition of styles.
The top of the truck was lifted to make room for small rectangular windows. McGuire even recreated the original busted old grill with the help of metal workers, building a replica to grace the front of her truck. "We're rustic out here—rust is part of our beauty. We embrace those elements instead of shying away from them."
Soon it would be emblazoned with the emerging brand's fresh logo—hand-painted for a vintage feel—inspired by the Falcon Ladies Bicycling Club of the 1800s. (That freewheeling group of females had pushed social and gender boundaries with their rebellious riding around on bikes in skirts; they were revolutionaries of their time.)
"I think of making coffee as an art, and that's what the name represents," Maguire says. "[Falcon Ladies] were free thinkers who approached issues differently and in new ways."
Maguire also points to the importance of calling her business a "coffee club." "We're a club that anybody can be part of. We like good coffee, we like connecting with people, we like the culture behind coffee, and we like the culture of women in coffee. Why limit ourselves to one label?"
Maguire plans to grow Lady Falcon with a roastery of her own, situated along Great Highway in the Outer Sunset (she's in the process of getting permits to start building). But already she's got a fan club of her own—a female police officer pulled over just to tell her that the coffee was delicious.
Buy the beans, roasted in vintage Probats, online or at local artisanal grocers including Bi-Rite, Gus's Community Market, and Cafe St. Jorge.
// Lady Falcon Coffee Club can be found at Ocean Beach on weekdays, and at Off the Grid (Presidio) on Sundays; for updates on the truck's location, follow them on Twitter and Instagram. // ladyfalconcoffeeclub.com
