Dayglow - Specialty Coffee Shop & Roaster in Los Angeles

Dayglow opened in Silver Lake on New Year’s Day 2018. Its first customers were a couple visiting from Paris, and a coffee from the French roaster Belleville was on the menu. The founders are cousins: Tohm Ifergan, Mexican-born and a touring musician for most of his life, and Philippe Ifergan, who brought him the idea of a small coffee business that could grow in its neighbourhood. They set out to open one café and now have seven: Chinatown, Silver Lake, Larchmont and Venice in Los Angeles, West Hollywood, and one each in Chicago and Brooklyn. The Chinatown site doubles as Niteglow, with Jonathan Ifergan as head brewer.

“We don’t push coffee. We curate it.” Dayglow was built on curiosity about roasters at home and abroad, and the coffees it discovers are served at the cafés and sold through its online market and subscriptions. The roster changes: Coffee Collective from Denmark, Friedhats and Dak from Amsterdam, Swerl from Sweden, Slow from New Zealand, Dalston from Barcelona as a featured roaster, and American roasters such as Methodical, with which Dayglow has a collaboration coffee.

Since those first years Dayglow has started roasting itself. Its own coffees carry letters for their profile rather than names, W for winey, B for balanced, S for sweet, E for exotic, F for floral, C for creamy and V for vibrant, with JUICY, DECADENT and a sugarcane decaf called SWEET as year-round coffees. The current lots include a natural from Mount Elgon in Uganda, a Pacas from Finca Majajual in El Salvador, a honey Geisha from Veracruz and co-fermented Castillos from Colombia, all roasted weekly. Rareglow, a subscription of rare lots, began with coffees from other roasters and now shares the roastery’s own special lots.