ESCONDIDO – The city will soon be home to the county’s second-ever Dutch Bros Coffee shop, a popular Oregon-based coffee chain that is expanding further throughout Southern California.
The Escondido Planning Commission officially approved Dutch Bros. at its Sept. 27 meeting.
The new coffee shop will be a 950-square foot, dual-lane, drive-thru only restaurant located at 507 W. Washington Avenue. The site is currently home to a vacant restaurant that formerly housed the Rancho Las Palmas Mexican Grill, which will need to be demolished to make way for Dutch Bros.
The coffee shop will provide 19 parking spaces and can accommodate up to 19 vehicles in its drive-thru lanes. Landscaping will screen the drive-thru lanes and be maintained up to three feet to prevent blocking views from Centre City Parkway from the police.
With a small restaurant, Dutch Bros. will have between three and four employees working inside the building and two to four employees outside taking orders to help alleviate business flow.
“Based on the surrounding land uses and the compatibility with adjacent land uses we don’t foresee there being an issue with onsite circulation,” said Ivan Flores, the city planner overseeing the project. “They have enough queuing in their drive-thrus to accommodate the type of use and type of circulation that’s expected on the site.”
Dutch Bros. is often described as a “cult favorite” coffee shop. The chain was first started in 1992 by brothers Travis and Dane Boersma as a double-head espresso machine on a push cart in Grants Pass, Oregon.
Now, the coffee chain has 500 drive-thru stores in multiple states with plans to expand to 4,000 in the next few years. San Diego County’s first Dutch Bros. location opened earlier this year in Oceanside.
Dutch Bros. offers a wide variety of beverages including customizable coffees, hot and iced tea, energy drinks, smoothies, hot cocoa, freezes, soda and lemonade.
