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Walking into Coupa Cafe on Ramona Street in Palo Alto, you pass a display of colorful rocks painted by customers. Keep going and you’ll see black-and-white photos of the farm from which Coupa’s coffee beans are sourced, a pastry case of treats like tres leches cakes and dulce de leche croissants, and menus boasting more than 50 food items and 30 drink options such as spicy maya mocha, guayoyo and marron (and even five types of boozy coffees). Walk all the way toward the fireplace in the back and, under a table, you’ll find Stanford University’s logo embedded within the stone floor.
Twenty years ago, Nancy Coupal saw that symbol and took it as a sign to open the very first Coupa Cafe – now a popular Peninsula cafe chain with nine locations.
“I was like, ‘Is this a sign that this is the place?’” she said. “And it was.”
Nancy, who was born in Berkeley and grew up in Los Angeles, lived in Venezuela for 27 years. She ran her own clothing business that exported to places like Henri Bendel and Saks Fifth Avenue while raising three kids – all of whom would go to Stanford for college. But when government changes made it impossible for her to continue importing and exporting products, she decided to join her husband in the restaurant business, which included a coffee roasting company.
“Right about the same time as my youngest left, the face of the nation was changing,” she said. “So I decided it was time for me to go home.”
Instead of moving back to Los Angeles, Nancy decided to move to the Bay Area in 2003 to be closer to her children at Stanford. Her entrepreneurial spirit unphased, she decided to look for a location for a new business in Palo Alto.
“I walked around town, and I found an old architect’s lighting store,” she said. “And we talked, and I decided, ‘OK, let me take a second mortgage on my house that I had in L.A.,’ and I opened up this Coupa.”
Inspired by the coffee and food in Venezuela, she began incorporating cafe classics with Venezuelan offerings – all handmade, all made-to-order. You’ll find tequeños (cheese sticks wrapped in dough), empanaditas (gluten-free mini empanadas filled with cheese or meat), perico platters (scrambled eggs with sweet peppers and onions served with an arepa) and other Venezuelan dishes.
“From day one, it attracted people like a magnet because I made it how I wanted to find things for myself,” she said. “I wanted a comfortable home away from home, as now the term is so popular, that ‘third place’ (a location outside of home or work where you can hang out). Well I was doing that ‘third place’ 20 years ago. So free Wi-Fi, come in, stay as long as you want. I’m not going to push you out.”
When her youngest son, Jean Paul Coupal, graduated Stanford with a degree in economics in 2008, he became a partner, and they opened a Coupa Cafe at the Y2E2 building at Stanford together. Then in 2010, Nancy’s daughter, Camelia Coupal, became a partner, and the three of them opened a Coupa Cafe in Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Today, Nancy, Jean Paul and Camelia own and operate all nine locations.
“It’s really nice because you trust them,” Nancy said. “It just makes it sort of like a family achievement, as well as a personal achievement. And I’m proud of both of them.”
One of Nancy’s favorite parts of running Coupa Cafe is the community aspect. Nancy is a director of the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce, is on the board of La Comida – a nonprofit that feeds senior citizens in need of nutrition in Palo Alto – and is a member of Silicon Valley Committee for Human Rights Watch. Coupa Cafe is a sponsor of the United Nations Association Film Festival in Palo Alto and donates to the Rotary Club and Palo Alto Players, among other organizations.
Looking back at 20 years in business, Nancy said the biggest two challenges she’s faced were a decline in customers during the massive downtown Palo Alto infrastructure project “Upgrade Downtown” in 2018-2019 and the pandemic.
“I think it’s the first time in my life I cried because of business, because I could not face the idea of having to lay off anybody,” she said.
But there were also great successes, she said, including keeping half of Ramona Street pedestrian only.
“I’m really proud of what we do for our community, that we offer that third place,” she said.
Looking toward the future, Nancy plans to let her “kids take the lead.”
“When I did do this, at the end of the day, it was really for them,” she said. “Because I didn’t want to have a life where everything that you had done in Venezuela would be worthless. That was my whole point in coming here.”
Coupa Cafe on Ramona Street will be celebrating its 20th anniversary tomorrow, March 7, with free drip coffee all day long, live guitar from noon to 2 p.m., a birthday-cake cutting in the afternoon and a special Coupa card offer.
“I appreciate Palo Alto and the surrounding communities, and everyone who supports the cafe knowing that it is a small family business,” Nancy said. “And I believe that businesses like ours make Palo Alto a better place and make it unique. And uniqueness makes your everyday life special.”
Coupa Cafe, 538 Ramona St., Palo Alto; 650-322-6872. Instagram: @coupacafe. Open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.