Philz Coffee’s original Mission location shuts its doors

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At 1:30 p.m. on Monday, a worker on a scissor lift took down the 20-year-old Philz Coffee sign at 24th and Folsom streets. Inside the café, the last cup of coffee had been served 30 minutes earlier.

Philz Coffee, which has more than 60 stores across the country, today closed its original location where the one-cup-at-a-time coffee was invented. The company first announced the decision in August, citing difficulties renewing its lease, and declined to comment further when Mission Local revealed that the building housing the original store was owned by former Philz CEO Jacob Jaber, the son of Phil Jaber, the chain’s owner.  

No matter. Devotees crammed in the coffee shop to have a last cup of joe. A perpetual line bellied up to the counter and then some: Four dozen customers filled every seat and packed the cafe, some with laptops, others taking pictures of the menu that promised coffee for $2.50 a cup. Uniformed firefighters with cups of coffee in their hands came and went; reporters showed up with cameras and notebooks. 

“It’s an emotional day, obviously, for many reasons, for the team, for the community,” said Chris Watts, manager of the Philz Mission and Castro stores. He wept as he spoke, trying to find the upside of one chapter ending and another beginning.

The largest crowd poured in at 12:30 p.m., and stood in a space decorated with balloons, marigolds and a note reading “1 day left until we close.”

The only clear sign for the closing came at 12:55 p.m., when a barista blurted out to the ever-growing line of customers, “Everyone, we close at 1 p.m.”

Soon after, a driver watching a worker climb up the scissor lift to begin the removal work shouted, “Don’t take it down, leave it here!”

“I’m glad I had these memories [here],” said Mick Punk, 56, a regular who recorded the scene on his camera. Punk started patronizing the cafe at the corner of Folsom and 24th streets in 2003, when Philz’s internet was much faster than his own. He spent the years after chatting with Phil at the cafe. Phil gave him free coffee on his birthday, and sent a heating guy to fix Punk’s heater days before a frigid New Year. 

Now living in Berkeley, Punk remains a regular at the Philz there, but “this one is the best,” he said. 

Liliana Salgado, 56, has visited more than 15 Philz stores since 2017 because she likes the concept of “one cup at a time.” She’s been texting with Phil since she coincidentally ran into him at one of his cafes near Irvine. “I just texted him, telling him how amazing and how sad and how thankful I was. And he replied. Which, I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s still around,’ which is great,” she said. 

Neither Phil Jaber nor his son, Jacob Jaber, showed up at the Mission location today.

“When you look around, there aren’t a lot of people with earbuds … listening to their own music,” said Cody Herman, 23, who came in for the first time today and crashed into this farewell. “That’s just a sign of how genuine that cafe atmosphere is, and just really speaks to why it’s such a great environment to be in.”

His friend, Francesca Giani, a graduate student at University of San Francisco, patronized Philz every two weeks for its abundant natural light, artistic people and, most important, to write her papers. “The people serving are really nice, which is something kind of rare in coffee shops, I think,” she said. “Genuine interactions, not just for work.”

Mission store staff gathered hastily after closing time. They declined to provide more than a quick comment, fearing that employees who go on to work for other Philz stores could face retaliation. According to them, about two dozen former employees also showed up today for the farewell. 

“Generally, it just was not a lot of communication from people closing down,” one employee said. “And I guess, right now, we’re all feeling pretty disrespected, just being kicked out of the store without really being able to have a token thing,” such as a going-away party, they said.

“You feel kind of ignored, the fact that we have to beg for an hour to say bye, play a little bit of music, take some photos,” said another. “Our bosses were just like, ‘Can you guys get out now?’ We got to tear down the store, and we’ve planned a potluck for everyone to come and celebrate their time.”

Just after 1:30 p.m., a representative from Philz upper management cleared out the coffee shop. “I’m so sorry. We have to let anybody who’s not a team member out of the store right now,” he said. 

According to Mission and Castro manager Watts, Philz will start moving out of the location right away; furniture, memorabilia and equipment may be sent to other Philz stores, and its iconic ceilings will be painted over after a photographer takes pictures. 

Soon the store was vacated, leaving a partially peeling ceiling and a floor too worn to guess its original color. Visitors were given free bags of coffee beans, and one woman picked a few leaves of the fiddle-leaf fig at the corner of the cafe to keep as a souvenir.