Fourtillfour Cafe was born in Arizona but has always been drawn west, to the coast. After several years of growing Fourtillfour Cafe in Scottsdale, it was time to open another outpost in an area that was special to us and the Fourtillfour brand – this time in Encinitas, San Diego.
The Southern California region, specifically San Diego county, has been a part of the Fourtillfour origin story since 2007. Founder, Nico Samaras, was at Camp Pendleton for his Marine Corps service, and lived in other North County cities in San Diego for years following. Watching classic cars driving up and down the 101 only affirmed our decision to open a second home for Fourtillfour Cafe out west. There’s also a culinary appreciation in the area, found in some of our favorite spots: Kai Ola Sushi, Dija Mara, and Buona Forchetta to name a few. While the diversity of foods and flavors make this area special, we saw that no one was doing coffee like us and knew there was an opportunity to bring our taste for specialty coffee to the area.
Fourtillfour Cafe Encinitas is an outdoor space, surrounded by an abundance of greenery and shaded by both young and mature trees, umbrellas, and an architectural overhang reminiscent of a beach house. While we do offer some limited seating outside of our fence to get the Highway 101 coastal experience, the real magic of our cafe happens inside the gates. Our goal for our coffee program is to roast and serve the best quality coffee we can, and rethink the cafe experience.
THE COFFEE
Our limited menu highlights some of the best coffees sourced from around the world. Currently, our blends are made up of beans farmed in regions of Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, Ethiopia and Kenya.
All of our coffee is fair trade. We small batch roast on our Probat L12 in Scottsdale, and ship it out weekly ensuring the freshest coffee. Our espresso blend is a favorite of ours – both balanced and bright, with a beautifully sweet finish.
We’re proud to offer a third wave coffee experience at Fourtillfour Cafe Encinitas. Our menu is modest, and focuses on traditional, specialty coffee offerings, like drip, macchiatos, and cortados, as well as mochas and lattes. We also serve a few quality house-made syrups such as bergamot, vanilla, caramel, and lavender.
We serve freshly baked pastries from Farmshop, including an assortment of croissants, muffins, cinnamon sugar toast, and breakfast breads, as well as gluten free and vegan pastries and oatmeal. Our Grandview Baking Co. gluten free bagels are freshly baked, toasted, and topped with our house-made garlic feta dill spread or plain cream cheese spread – a house favorite!
THE EVENTS
We currently have two monthly events at Fourtillfour Cafe Encinitas, air-cooled Porsches and vintage 4x4s, gathering on the first and last Saturday of the month. We come together in the large parking lot outside of the Cafe, where a once 1930’s hotel, now houses neighboring boutique shops and local businesses like Leucadia Floral & Plant, Child of Wild, Thread Spun, Little Fox, and Piercing 101.
A variety of cars come to these events, including old Toyota Land Cruisers and Tacomas, Land Rover Defenders and Land Rover series, Unimogs, Pinzgauers, early 911s and 356 Porsches.
We hope to add some additional Fourtillfour Car Club original meets including the Shakedown (vintage Europeans and vintage JDM), vintage euro motorcycles, air cooled Volkswagens, and anything else we can think of.
Fourtillfour is always looking for new markets to expand to. Let us know if you have any suggestions for our next location by sending us a line at hello@fourtillfour.com
San Diego car owners – sign up for events HERE
