Cake If there is any place in the entirety of Godโs Green Earth that I would not want to be caught dead drinking coffee, it would be in a Quentin Tarantino film. Because, as Jackson OโBrienโs excellent piece on coffee in the films of Quentin Tarantino explains, if youโre drinking coffee, youโre likely to soon be caught. And dead. Coffee is often an inflection point, the last peaceful moment before a harrowing, and often violent, series of events.
Others, though, may feel more cavalier with their own lives. For them, there is Pamโs Coffy, a new coffee shop in Los Angeles owned by none other than Quentin Tarantino. What could poss-ib-lee go wrong?
As reported by Eater LA, the cafe is attached to the Vista Theater in the Los Feliz neighborhood, which Tarantino also owns. It is named after the 1973 film Coffy, starring Pam Grier, the leading actor in Tarantinoโs Jackie Brown. Per Eater LA, the director bought the 100-year-old theater back in 2021, and Pamโs Coffy is part of the spaceโs revival. The decor of the cafe is โ70s-inspired, featuring oversized vintage posters from movies like Coffy and Goliath and the Vampires as well as โan assortment of old-school TVs playing VCRs mostly from the โ70s.โ
The coffee for Pamโs will be provided by Jones Coffee Roasters, who is no stranger to the combination of coffee and film. The roaster has created a custom blend for Pamโs Coffy known as Bold Black Mamba, a reference to the code name of Uma Thurmanโs character in the Kill Bill movies.
Food at Pamโs Coffy comes via pastries from LAโs Cake Monkey bakery as well as $5 cereal bowls, โanother personal Tarantino touch.โ
Currently open everyday until 5:00pm, Pamโs Coffy is planning to expand hours for special events, once they have secured a beer and wine license.
In the pantheon of celebrity-owned coffee enterprises, Tarantinoโs Pamโs Coffy is the least likely I am to entertain. (Well, maybe Robert Downey Jrโs Happy Coffee, but this is a close second.) I, for instance, would not visit a truck stop operated by Robert Rodriguez or a hotel run by the Coen Brothers. There are just some places where the warning signs are written across the marquee in big bright lights. In the world of coffee, such a place would have Quentin Tarantinoโs name attached to it. Caveat emptor.
Zac Cadwaladerย is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.ย Read more Zac Cadwaladerย on Sprudge.
