New SLO coffee shop faces backlash for ties to man accused of sexual assault
Community members called out a new San Luis Obispo coffee shop over the weekend for its ties to a local man accused of sexually assaulting several women — prompting a vigorous response from the business.
According to San Luis Obispo County business records, Taft St. Coffee and Pastries is owned by Christian Contreras, whose brother is former Kin Coffee Bar owner Julian Contreras.
The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office is investigating Julian Contreras in connection with several alleged cases of sexual assault and harassment that came to light on social media in April.
Nearly 40 women have come forward on Instagram accusing Contreras and Nate Abate, who owns a barbershop in Atascadero, of sexual assault or harassment.
Over the past week, several people posted on Instagram asking for Taft St. Coffee, which opened in early August, to be transparent about who owns the business and who is benefiting from it. They say the new coffee shop is actually just Kin Coffee Bar’s second location, renamed and rebranded.
At least one local resident even called for a boycott of the coffeehouse.
In a statement posted to its Instagram account on Aug. 20, Taft St. Coffee and Pastries said the business has “one sole owner” and that the process of changing names and ownership takes time.
“We do not have business relations with any coffee shop nor is any coffee shop ‘profiting’ from the sales at our establishment,” the statement said.
Taft St. Coffee said in its post that anyone who continues to spread “misinformation” about the company will be met with “legal actions.”
At least six people who posted about Taft St. Coffee on social media have received cease-and-desist letters from the business via Instagram, demanding that social media posts about the business be removed within five days.
Who owns new SLO coffee shop?
When the allegations against Julian Contreras came to light on social media, Kin Coffee Bar said in an Instagram post that he would be stepping down effective immediately, and that the shop would be run by its employees moving forward.
The business has since deleted its Instagram account.
According to business license records obtained by The Tribune via a public records request, ownership of Kin Coffee Bar’s downtown location was transferred to Contreras’ mother Maria Meyers on April 13 — about a week after the allegations arose.
The San Luis Obispo County Clerk Recorder’s Office still lists Contraria LLC, a company owned by Julian Contreras according to the California’s Secretary of State, as the business’ registrant.
Kin Coffee Bar’s second location opened at 1340 Taft St. in San Luis Obispo in July 2021 and was originally owned by Meyers, business license records show.
That coffee shop was legally operating under the business name Contreras KIN Limited Liability Company. The company changed its name to Palm View Coffee Lounge in May, and Meyers was listed as the owner.
According to online county records, the company’s name was changed again to Taft Street Coffee on Aug. 15, and registered to California Coalition LLC, a company whose CEO is listed as Julian Contreras’ brother, Christian Contreras, on the California Secretary of State’s website.
California Coalition LLC was established in June, with Meyers listed as the agent for service of process, meaning she is authorized to receive legal documents on behalf of the company, according to the company’s statement of information.
On Aug. 8, Christian Contreras was listed as the CEO in two separate filings — the first listing his mother as the agent for service and the second listing him as the agent.
Meyers and employees of Kin Coffee Bar in downtown San Luis Obispo declined to speak with The Tribune.
Employees of Christian Contreras’ barbershop, The Gallant, located next door to Kin Coffee Bar, told The Tribune that Contreras did not have a phone.
As of Tuesday, Taft St. Coffee had not responded to The Tribune’s request for comment via Instagram, which is currently the only way to reach the business. The shop, which does not have a publicly listed phone number, email address or Facebook page, was closed on two recent occasions.
In the meantime, Abate appears to have changed the name of his business, Nate’s Barbershop.
According to its new website, the business is now called Cardinal Barbershop and Abate is listed as “the proprietor of the shop.” It is unclear when this name change occurred.
Taft St. Coffee threatens legal action
In an Aug. 19 Instagram post, resident Ian Myers asked community members to boycott Taft St. Coffee and Pastries. The post was followed by several comments of support.
A day later, Myers received a cease-and-desist letter from the business.
“The cease-and-desist was sent to me in a digital copy only through Instagram messaging,” Myers told the Tribune via email, “so my initial inclination to rip it up and throw it in the trash would require me to go somewhere and have it printed out first. ...
“I just don’t have the time for (that).”
Myers said he posted about Taft St. Coffee on social media out of concern for the safety of the San Luis Obispo community.
He said multiple community members had tried to clarify the identity of the current owner of Taft St. Coffee by messaging the business via Instagram or commenting on its posts.
Those queries “were either completely ignored or resulted in the comments being disabled on all Taft Instagram posts,” Myers said.
He said he received a photo from another community member of someone “directly connected to Julian (Contreras)” painting over a Kin Coffee Bar logo at the Taft St. Coffee location several weeks ago.
When Taft St. Coffee began posting photos on Instagram, Myers said, he and others noticed the photos depicted the same murals and drinks as seen at Kin Coffee Bar’s second location.
“The community now knows that Taft St. Coffee, formerly Kin 2 as of four months ago, is owned by the brother of a man being investigated for over 40 counts of sexual assault and the community will do what it wants with that information going forward,” Myers said.
“In Taft Street’s complete refusal to be forthcoming with the identity of the new owner, we felt compelled to remind people of the situation involving Julian (Contreras),” Myers added. “We just demanded to know who owns it and who is running it and whether this ‘new business’ was going to be used to allow Julian to slither back out from his hiding place and into the public sphere.”
Henry Bruington, a former employee of Kin Coffee Bar who shared Myers’ post on social media, also received a cease-and-desist letter, despite his posts only being on Instagram stories, which expire after 24 hours.
“All I did was repost something on Instagram,” Bruington told The Tribune. “I didn’t feel like I was really doing anything that crazy.”
He said the cease-and-desist letter felt “immature,” and questioned whether the argument Taft St. Coffee made claiming his post was harassment would actually hold up in court.
Bruington said the letters feel like a “scare tactic to silence people.”
He called the sexual assault allegations faced by Abate and Contreras “a terrible thing that’s happened to our community. ...
“The fact that they feel like they can take legal action against people supporting people in our community, it’s upsetting,” Bruington said.
Kin Coffee Bar owner accused of sexual assault
Ash Riddell was the first person to come forward with allegations of sexual assault against Julian Contreras and Nate Abate on Instagram, telling the Tribune that 39 people have shared experiences of being physically assaulted, sexually assaulted or harassed by one or both men.
The Tribune has spoken to other women who also say they were assaulted by one or both men.
San Luis Obispo Police Department Capt. Brian Amoroso told The Tribune in an email that the agency’s investigation is currently inactive because the majority of reported incidents occurred outside of its jurisdiction. Those that did occur within SLOPD’s jurisdiction did not have enough evidence to pursue, he said.
The Sheriff’s Office confirmed Tuesday that it is still investigating the allegations and could not release further details at this time.
Riddell has posted about Taft St. Coffee on social media but said she has not received a cease-and-desist letter.
She called the business’ attempts to silence people discussing its ownership on social media “shocking.” While the rebrand “makes sense,” she said, seeing the news has reopened some wounds.
“I will never allow my experience to be silenced. It took so much from me to accept being battered down. I felt his hand on my neck once. I will not feel it again,” she wrote in an Aug. 21 social media post. “It stopped being just mine as soon as I went public. My pain and embarrassment opened the wounds for 39 others.”
