Inglewood's Independent Coffee Comes Down to the Room It's Poured In

On July 10, 2026, a latte cart set up at 300 Market St. in Downtown Inglewood. A World Cup quarterfinal was underway at SoFi Stadium a mile away. Sip & Sonder baristas Martin Tolbert and Alyson Pineda poured free drinks for a small-business summit hosted by La Create Space and Square, then opened the cart to the public from 2 to 6 p.m. as fans left the match, according to The LA Local. Six months before that, the shop had closed its original storefront on the same street.

A cart can pour for an afternoon. Pouring every day takes a room, and in 2026 the room is where Inglewood's independent coffee has stalled. Rent, plumbing, and permits explain each of the year's setbacks, from Market Street to Century Boulevard.

The Rent That Emptied 108 Market Street

Sip & Sonder opened its first location at 108 Market St. in 2017 and served drip coffee and lattes there for nearly nine years. The day after Christmas 2025, it announced it would close. The Los Angeles Times reported the flagship's last day as Dec. 31, 2025.

Owner Amanda-Jane Thomas told The LA Local that steep rent was the main reason. The shop had hoped to move to another Inglewood space before announcing the closure, but that plan didn't work out. Its downtown Los Angeles location is still open. Pineda, who has worked at both, described the Inglewood shop to the outlet as a place where regulars "worked on PhDs there, start a family, start a business."

The asking rents explain why replacing the shop is hard. In an October 2026 report, Joseph Fleming, co-owner of another Inglewood coffee business, told The LA Local that some Inglewood landlords had sought $10,000 to $12,000 a month for spaces, including the former Sip & Sonder storefront. The same report said Market Street had lost at least two brick-and-mortar businesses within the past year: Sip & Sonder and the vegan restaurant Stuff I Eat.

Sip & Sonder plans to return. Thomas has said she is aiming for a permanent Inglewood location in early 2027 and called the July pop-ups "the beginning of this journey back to Inglewood." Early 2027 is the shop's own target. It has not opened yet.

Two and a Half Years for a Counter on Century Boulevard

Opening a new space brings its own wait. Gio's Cafe opened on Century Boulevard in September 2026. Co-owner Zoyla Pinacho told The LA Local that getting through Inglewood's permit process took two and a half years.

When Gio's finally opened, it joined a Century Boulevard that had changed a great deal. Lounge 1888 opened at 3930 W. Century Blvd. at the end of summer. Eater LA called it "one of the few sit-down dining options" near the arena. Its general manager, Phil Holmes, told Eater the owners saw that this side of Inglewood was short on sit-down restaurants and that diners were driving to Redondo Beach or Manhattan Beach to eat. Lounge 1888 opens at 3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and at 4 p.m. on Mondays, and serves weekend brunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eater also reported that it hosts sommelier-led wine tastings on nights when the Intuit Dome is dark.

Lounge 1888's owners secured their space in 2024, so it also took about two years to go from lease to opening.

Why a Cart Wasn't Enough at Asteroid Vinyl Cafe

Asteroid Vinyl Cafe shows the same pressures inside a single shop. Maritza Galvez and Joseph Fleming opened the record store and coffee shop two years ago. Galvez told The LA Local it was initially the only Latino-owned specialty coffee shop in Inglewood. The shop sold its coffee from a mobile cart until July 2026. That month, the LA County Department of Public Health notified the owners that the cart setup was not permitted.

Coffee had been the shop's main source of revenue, Fleming told the outlet, and record sales alone don't cover the business. To meet the county's standards, the owners estimate they need about $40,000 for plumbing, a mop sink, and other fixtures. They have also described the city's side of the process. Fleming said Inglewood requires architectural plans for the work, and that other business owners he has heard from spent years on permits or ran out of money before finishing.

Moving wasn't a simple fix either. The owners said they spent the past year looking for a space that was already built out. Rents and leasing requirements made moving difficult, and the more affordable spaces they found were in Redondo Beach and Santa Monica. Galvez summed up their plan to The LA Local:

"We understand compliance. We're hoping to correct what they want us to correct and get back to coffee so we can stay around for a long time."

The Help Asteroid Vinyl Cafe Serve Coffee Again fundraiser had raised $6,810 toward its $40,000 goal from 137 donations at last check. On the fundraiser page, the owners say coffee service has stopped while they work toward the required approvals and improvements. In October they told The LA Local they would decide within about 90 days whether they can stay open while they work through the permitting. That puts the decision around early January.

La Brea Avenue Is Where the Pour Is Steady

With Market Street waiting and Century Boulevard still filling in, La Brea Avenue is where Inglewood's coffee is reliably available, morning to midnight, as of this fall. Two shops on La Brea, a few blocks apart, are open every day.

Hilltop Coffee + Kitchen at 170 N. La Brea Ave. is open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, and the kitchen closes at 2:30 p.m. Its Inglewood location page has a November 2026 events calendar, so it does more than serve the morning rush.

Awakening at 231 S. La Brea covers the hours Hilltop doesn't. It opens at 5:30 a.m. every day and stays open until 11 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and until midnight Thursday through Sunday. The patio closes at 11 p.m. The menu includes specialty coffee, ceremonial matcha, bagels, and pastries. The shop says it is open at regular hours on every major US holiday, New Year's Day included.

Here is the full picture for a reader on Nov. 12, 2026:

The shops in the top two rows are pouring every day in finished spaces. The bottom three show what an Inglewood coffee shop goes through before it gets there. A rent bill closed one after nine years. A permit process delayed another by two and a half years. A plumbing requirement, estimated at $40,000, stopped coffee service at the third. The two dates to watch this winter are Asteroid's decision in early January and Sip & Sonder's search for a new Inglewood space ahead of its early 2027 target.

At The Jones Group Realtors, we follow these storefronts because the shops on a block are part of what neighbors value about where they live. If you'd like to talk through what's changing on your part of La Brea, Market Street, or Century Boulevard, schedule a free consultation with Greg.