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Drink a cappuccino stamped with the image of your face or dip a giant concha into an enormous cup of coffee at this new cafe in downtown Redwood City.
Con Azucar Café, a San Jose-founded franchise specializing in drinks including cafe de olla and lattes flavored with mazapan, soft opened its first Peninsula location May 23 and will host its grand opening June 7. The cafe went viral on social media in 2023 for its extra large take on concha and coffee, which both serve about 10 people, and respectively cost $35 and $45, according to Redwood City franchise owner Berenisse Cruz.
“When you walk in here, you feel the atmosphere, the place itself looks amazing, and you feel the culture, and you feel at home,” Cruz said.
Open daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., the cafe offers an all-day menu of avocado and Caprese toasts, BLT and club sandwiches, three-cheese grilled cheese and torta de jamon, a classic Mexican ham sandwich on soft and fluffy telera bread ($9.50-$15).
For sweets, Con Azucar offers a variety of pan dulce (Mexican pastries), as well as concha ice cream sandwiches with cajeta (Mexican caramel), chocolate sauce, sprinkles and powdered sugar.
The drinks menu includes standard hot and cold coffee drinks, as well as specialty lattes in flavors such as Duvalin (a hazelnut strawberry candy), horchata, mazapan (a peanut candy) and dulce de leche ($6.50-$7). Guests can choose to top their latte with cold foam in flavors such as Duvalin, Abuelita (Mexican hot chocolate), matcha, vanilla and mazapan ($1.50).
Guests can opt to transform their hot latte into a “selfie-ccino” by scanning a QR code at the register, uploading an image or selecting an image from Con Azucar’s image library and a laser imaging device will burn the photograph or artwork onto the coffee’s foam.
Non-coffee options include 20-ounce refreshers in flavors such as jamaica-raspberry, tamarindo, cucumber-lime and more ($7).
While Cruz, a Salinas resident, previously worked in restaurants, opening Con Azucar is her debut as a franchise owner. She said she connected with the brand because of her Mexican, specifically Michoacán, heritage and her love of cafes, and she wanted to bring Con Azucar to Redwood City because of the large population of Michoacános.
“(Redwood City) has been very welcoming to us,” she said.
Con Azucar Café is located in the former spot of Cyclismo Café, which closed in 2022 after six years in the downtown area due to the pandemic and a lawsuit by a prolific Americans with Disabilities Act litigator. Cyclismo Café continues today as Cyclismo Mini Cafe less than a 10-minute walk from its original location.
Cruz said that it was a family effort to open Con Azucar in Redwood City, which is co-owned by her brother Victor Cruz Juarez.
“What makes us really proud is that our location was made by and constructed by my (seven) brothers and my dad,” she said.
Artist Luis Luna added elements of Michoacán culture to the interior design, including an image of La Danza de los Viejitos, a traditional folk dance in Michoacán. The cafe also is decorated with images of monarch butterflies, a nod to millions of monarch butterflies migrating to Morelia, Michoacán every year.
Also featured in the decor are hand-embroidered equipales, traditional Mexican chairs made from leather and wood, crafted in Guadalajara.
“One of the things that has been mentioned to me is that Redwood City needed a cafe like this,” Cruz said. “You see people of all races and all ethnicities coming in, and people that appreciate our culture. But I think for the Mexican community, coming in here just feels like home.”
Con Azucar Redwood City’s grand opening June 7 will feature a ribbon cutting, flower arrangement giveaways, dance performances and live music.
Con Azucar Café, 871 Middlefield Road, Redwood City; Instagram: @conazucarcafe. Open daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
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