Summit Coffee Brings Indie Brew to Happy Locals

Starbucks and Peet’s serve up great cups of coffee—but sometimes, like the classic song goes, you just want to go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.

In Redwood City, we humbly suggest, that place could be

Just under a year ago, Summit Coffee took over the place formerly known as CocoaJava, at 2137 Roosevelt Ave.—and locals have been praising Summit’s presence, ever since.

Summit not only serves a variety of different coffee drinks at reasonable prices—a latté is only around $3, for example—but they also feature a small menu of delicious, fresh food items, such as bagels, doughnuts, fruit salads, panini sandwiches and more.

In other words, no more picking a pre-packaged egg salad off a shelf, while wondering how long it’s been there.

However, one of the things Summit Coffee is most often praised for, is its friendly staff.

“It’s a very friendly and relaxed atmosphere,” said Jed Fuller of San Jose, who said he has friends in the area and always stops in for a cup of coffee when he’s in town.

Tara Miller has a flexible job that lets her work from home a few times a week, and she says she always loves to work on her laptop at Summit because the shop offers free WiFi.

“They totally don’t mind if you stay for a long time and work on your computer, which is really nice. Not many places are like that,” Miller said, complaining about how many Peet’s Coffee stores have a one-hour limit per item purchased for use of the WiFi. “And, if you’re going to be here a while, they even let you run a tab, which I really appreciate.”

Tom Morris of Redwood City says Summit is within walking distance of his home, so he loves to come on weekdays when it’s less crowded, and on weekends, he likes to people-watch while enjoying his favorite drink, a soy latté.

“The people that work here are always so friendly and chill. And, they care about the community, I always hear about them supporting different causes,” he said. “There’s even this guy who brings his guitar sometimes and just sits on the couch and plays a little, which is nice to listen to, and the owners don’t mind.”

Dan Jessup of Redwood City is a big fan of Guatemalan coffee, and said the brew they serve up at Summit is delicious. He likes to bring his pre-teen daughter with him, and said the staff is always more than happy to make a special, steamed milk for her, and often chat with her about how school is going and how she is doing with her after-school sports.

“She always says, ‘let’s go to Summit, Dad, that’s the best coffee shop, I like it there,’” said Jessup.

So far, it seems like business is booming for . The next time you’re in the mood for a cup of joe and want to avoid the huge crowds and long lines at the big chains, pop on over to 2137 Roosevelt Ave.