Cat & Cloud Coffee

Cat & Cloud grew out of Aptos into a small chain of cafés across Santa Cruz County, but the roasting stayed centralized and constant — beans go out roasted daily rather than sitting in a warehouse queue. The company's producer relationships run through what it calls the Best Friends Club, a program that commits a fixed $1 from every pound sold back to the growers themselves, turning a marketing phrase into a line item rather than leaving "direct trade" as an unverified claim. Current single-origin offerings pull from Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia and Honduras. Cat & Cloud's identity extends past the counter: the team runs its own podcast about small-business ownership and leadership, and collaborates with artist Nick Vargas on cafe murals and merchandise design, giving the brand a visual signature beyond the standard roaster logo-on-a-bag look. On the calendar, "Every Second Sunday" is a standing monthly public coffee tasting open to anyone who wants to cup through the current lineup rather than just read the tasting notes on a bag. Retail customers can join a subscription for a standing 10% discount. It reads less like a single-café roaster and more like a small company that treats content, design and grower economics as part of the same operation.