Scout Coffee to open a fourth location, its first outside San Luis Obispo

Scout Coffee plans to open its fourth San Luis Obispo County location, venturing out of SLO for the first time.

Owners Jon and Sara Peterson have purchased the shuttered Bank of America building in the heart of Morro Bay for their next coffeehouse spot.

The bank closed the branch in February 2018 and put the property up for sale early this year.

The Morro Bay shop will build on Scout’s two current locations and a third planned to open at Cal Poly this fall.

How Petersons got into the coffee business

Sarah Peterson worked at coffee shops and in hospitality most of her adult life, along with husband Jon. The couple met in 1999 when they were 18 and got married in 2005.

She said she “loved the idea of owning a coffee shop when I was in high school, before it became part of daily life for most people.”

After a couple years at Starbucks, Sara worked for a mom-and-pop coffee place back east, where she gained experience in many different facets of the business.

Later, in Santa Cruz, the couple worked together in the early days at Verve Coffee Roasters, where Sara became the retail operations director and Jon the marketing director. They furthered their experience by helping open two new locations in Santa Cruz over five years.

With that experience, the couple took a trip in San Luis Obispo, looking for a spot where they could start their own place.

”We happened to park right in front of a 1,400-square-foot building on Garden Street that had a ‘for lease’ sign in the window,” Sara said. They opened their first Scout Coffee location in January 2014. A year later, in January 2015, the couple opened their coffee roasting company, HoneyCo Coffee.

With lines out the door at the Garden Street shop, the couple decided to open a second location off Foothill in 2016 after some encouragement from the landlord there.

In the early days, Jon sourced, roasted and bagged all the coffee, in addition to managing their online coffee business and the back-end needs like accounting, while Sara oversaw the cafes, bakery, buying and merchandising, and all things relating to the customer experience.

Fast forward to 2021 and the couple — now with decades of experience and business still booming — signed a deal with Cal Poly to open a third location near the dorms, a 2,500-square-foot store next to the Welcome Center that is slated to open fall quarter.

Still, Jon knew he needed to find a bigger building to house the roasting business and have room for a full-size commercial kitchen, with the additional demand between Cal Poly and the online business.

“That kind of space is hard to find in SLO,” he said.

Morro Bay a perfect place for coffee

As he started to monitor potential spaces outside San Luis Obispo, the Petersons focused on Morro Bay as an area that could make a lot of sense with its beach town feel and “perfect coffee weather.”

Within just a few months of starting their search, the B of A building hit the market.

Jon said he got a call from his banker, who had heard about it from an investor.

It was 7 p.m. and offers on the property were due the next day. After a whirlwind of phone calls with brokers and a preliminary go-ahead from the Morro Bay planning department, they worked with their lender to figure out financing options and sent in their offer just minutes before the 5 p.m. deadline the next day.

Nosing out several rival bidders, the Petersons closed escrow on the bank building a few weeks ago. Now there will be four Scout locations.

With the help of an architect and contractor, the couple is working on plans to remodel the building focusing on customer experience, where they will showcase the new state-of-the-art roasting facility and made-from-scratch cooking, along with warm and welcoming service.

Already, the city is helping with the process, and the Chamber is introducing the couple around to Morro Bay merchants.

Watch the coffee roasters at work

The Morro Bay building has two levels, and they will likely use the 2,000-square-foot second floor for storage.

But the downstairs is plenty big at 6,451 square feet and will house a new roaster and commercial kitchen that will feature a glass wall so customers can watch the beehive of activity while sipping their java. There also will be space for merchandise, as in their other shops as well.

Altogether, Sara expects they will hire 25 to 30 people to work at the new Morro Bay Scout location.

The shop will offer take-out, but the place is designed for patrons to sit and savor coffee and even enjoy a light breakfast.

There are other places in town for coffee, but the Scout location will be the largest. The property sits on most of a block with a large parking lot behind.

“We don’t spend time thinking about competition,” Sara said. “Our efforts are really focused on how to provide the best possible customer experience day in and day out, and that’s what seems to work best for us.”

It may take some months before remodeling of the building is done and the new Scout location is ready to open.

John Lindt is the editor of the Sierra2thesea.net news site.

This story was originally published August 11, 2021 at 5:00 AM.