Our Story
Born Out of Principle.
And a Little Spite.
How one man's bad coffee experience became Los Angeles's most principled café.
Larry David was a regular at Mocha Joe's. Every morning, same order, same table. And every morning, the same problems.
The coffee was lukewarm at best. Not warm. Not hot. Lukewarm — that miserable middle ground where the coffee has clearly given up on being a real beverage. Larry mentioned it once. Then twice. Then a third time, because apparently expecting hot coffee from a coffee shop makes you a “difficult customer.”
Then there were the tables. Every single one wobbled. You'd set your cup down and watch it slide like it was on the deck of a ship. Larry folded napkins, used sugar packets, even brought his own shims from home. Nothing helped. The tables at Mocha Joe's weren't just wobbly — they were aggressively unstable, as if the furniture itself was trying to ruin your morning.
And don't even get him started on the scones. Moist. Damp. Practically sweating. A scone should crumble. It should have the structural integrity of something baked in an oven, not pulled from a swamp. But Mocha Joe's served their scones like they'd been stored in a humidor overnight.
“I didn't want to open a coffee shop. I wanted to drink hot coffee at an existing one. They made this necessary.”
— Larry David, Founder
The Ban
When Larry pointed out — politely, he insists — that the coffee was cold, the tables were wobbly, and the scones were moist, Mocha Joe didn't take it as constructive feedback. He took it personally. And then he did the unthinkable: he banned Larry David from his coffee shop.
Banned. From a coffee shop. For wanting hot coffee. Let that sink in.
Most people would have moved on. Found another café. Downloaded a coffee delivery app. But Larry David is not most people. When you ban Larry David, you don't create a satisfied ex-customer. You create a competitor.
The Opening
Within weeks, Larry signed a lease on the space right next door to Mocha Joe's. Not across the street. Not down the block. Right. Next. Door. Close enough that Mocha Joe's customers could smell the fresh roast and feel the stability of properly leveled tables from outside.
Latte Larry's opened its doors in 2020 with a simple promise: everything Mocha Joe's does wrong, we do right. Hot coffee, guaranteed — every cup temperature-checked before it reaches your hands. Tables engineered for absolute stability, with precision-milled legs and self-leveling feet. Scones baked to an extra-dry crumble that shatters beautifully with every bite.
And hand sanitizer. On every table. Because basic hygiene shouldn't be an afterthought.
The Philosophy
People call Latte Larry's a “spite store.” Larry prefers “principled establishment.” Yes, it was born from frustration. Yes, the location was chosen for maximum psychological impact on Mocha Joe. But somewhere along the way, spite transformed into genuine craftsmanship.
It turns out that when you're obsessively motivated to be better than someone else, you end up being pretty good. The coffee is sourced from single-origin farms in Colombia and Ethiopia. The beans are roasted in small batches by people who actually care. The water is filtered. The machines are cleaned daily. Every detail matters — not because it's trendy, but because anything less would give Mocha Joe the satisfaction.
“Our Philosophy: If you're going to do something, do it right. Or at least better than Mocha Joe.”
Today, Latte Larry's is more than a coffee shop. It's proof that spite, properly channeled, can produce something beautiful. The hottest coffee in Los Angeles. Literally.