The Pacific Palisades location of Caffe Luxxe weeks after the Palisades fire. All images courtesy of Caffe Luxxe.
Amidst the torrent of socio-political and environmental issues that the Los Angeles wildfires have unleashed, the most enduring tragedy remains the loss of homes.
No fewer than 12,000 structures were destroyed, while approximately a quarter million residents were displaced — most temporarily, thousands permanently.
One of those structures was the home of the Caffe Luxxe Pacific Palisades location, which is now barely recognizable as a pile of ash and burnt metal — including that of a 2-group Synesso Cyncra machine peeking through the rubble.
Naturally, for the owners of Caffe Luxxe, coffee shops are more than mere structure; they’re more like second homes.
“We’re all devastated by the loss of our cafe, and our community,” Caffe Luxxe Co-Founder and President Mark Wain recently told Daily Coffee News. “If you see before and after pictures of the Palisades, it looks like a war zone.”
The shop’s 2-group Synesso Syncra machine in the rubble.
For Luxxe, the Pacific Palisades location was one of four locations — out of eight total — that had to be evacuated due to being in an immediate fire zone over the course of the L.A. fires last month. The Malibu location remains closed, while the Pacific Highway location is undergoing cleaning.
On the day the blaze swept through the Palisades, the shop’s landlord informed the owners that, unlike neighboring structures, their store appeared to have survived. It wasn’t until they saw a local news segment later that day that they realized the cafe had been reduced to rubble. Wain described the scene as a “total loss.”
“We have several customers — almost too many to count — who have unfortunately lost their homes, and at least one team member who lost their home as well,” Wain said. “We were able to relocate displaced team members to other cafes and kept them working, if they felt safe to do so, to minimize the financial impact on our team. We even paid others for the hours they ‘would have worked’ if they didn’t feel safe to return.”
Despite these hardships, the fire has also granted the owners some perspective, particularly regarding the resiliency of their staff, customers and community. Wain was effusive in his praise of the first responders.
The Palisades location before the fire.
“We are especially thankful for the fact that given the size and scope of this disaster, there was relatively minimal loss of life,” Wain said. “We can only point to the tremendous work put in by first responders, and for the residents and businesses in the area heeding the evacuation orders.”
Wain and co-owner Gary Chau were only recently allowed to go near Luxxe’s Palisades location. Their efforts now are focused at once on assessing the damage and rebuilding.
“We are bent, but not broken,” Wain said. “We will be back. The Palisades community will thrive again. We — the neighborhood, the community, and the company — will absolutely rebuild and we plan to be in the neighborhood, on the ground, helping the community to heal and rebuild just as soon as we are allowed.”
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