We meet Daniel Arteaga as he pulls shots of a fruit-forward espresso out of a generator-powered machine sitting in the trunk of his electric Toyota bZ4X on Wednesday. He's nestled between a group of street vendors working right from what used to be known as "the most depressing Starbucks in America" in Highland Park.
Although he runs out of oat milk early on, he nearly doubles his goal, selling 80 coffees by the end of the day, all while making customers laugh, handing out stickers, and talking to his followers on TikTok LIVE.
“We're out here doing exotic pour-overs on the street with the 99 Cents closed behind me [in] a dirty parking lot and stores that are borderline going out of business," says Arteaga. “We're serving, quote-unquote, specialty coffee, fermented coffee, specialty high-grade coffee to the people at six bucks."
After nearly ten years of working in the coffee industry, both in Los Angeles and his hometown of Chicago, Arteaga’s goal with Caffeineicide, his coffee pop-up, is to bring an authentic, DIY ethos to the industry and make coffee that’s for everybody.
In the trunk of his car, the espresso machine, grinder, and beaker sit on a wooden board at the top of a metal base with a small plastic tray at the bottom filled with cups and other essentials.
He places two bright orange pieces of Lego-like plastic underneath each rear tire to ensure his machine is level and to achieve a consistent pour.
Surrounding him are Home Depot buckets to match, and blue and red ice chests, all on top of plastic racks, as well as a tripod with his iPhone fixed on the espresso machine, where followers cheer him on as he pours shots.
Today, his menu includes espresso for $4 with washed Tabi coffee beans sourced from Finca La Esperanza in Colombia and roasted by Yensy Galindez. There's also slow brew for $6 with co-fermented, washed Caturra beans sourced from Finca Monteblanco in Colombia and roasted by Rodrigo Sanchez, as well as Nishio Matcha from Honshu, Japan, and Kerala chai from India's Malabar Coast.
Arteaga says that every great coffee shop should have a good vanilla syrup, so he makes his own, using vanilla bean pods from Papantla, Mexico, the motherland of vanilla. That is paired with turbinado sugar, infused with Madagascar vanilla beans, and instead of using water, like in a simple syrup, he uses oat milk. Recently, he added black mineral salt to the mixture to give it balance.
Ironically, he got his start as a barista at Starbucks in 2016 before exploring the world of specialty coffee through jobs at Verve, Intelligentsia, and Madlab, where he honed his skills and expanded his creativity.
“He trusted me on my espresso dials and I trusted him to lead the business in the way that he wanted … ,” Arteaga says of Andrew Sinclair, owner of Madlab Coffee. “That was a very sensitive time in my life where I was like, 'cool, I'm behind the espresso bar by myself, how do I run it like it's my own, how do I treat every guest like they're coming for me and uphold his business values?'”
Although he just quit a different barista job, where he says he was making only minimum wage, he started selling coffee out of his trunk at Echo Park Lake nearly three months ago.
The idea had been forming for years in his notes app, with over five iterations of the setup he currently has written down. However, he knew he was ready to carve a new lane after finding himself getting tired of pouring coffee he didn’t feel passionate about.
“I'm so sick of the old school, of the old way, and the old thinking and the white-tification of coffee," Arteaga says. “Coffee is very brown, coffee is very black, and coffee is not for a certain type of people to hold on to and act exclusive with."
Growing up as the second-generation Latino grandchild of Mexican immigrants in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, he naturally gravitated towards the corner of York and Figueroa in Highland Park, which he says reminds him of home.
“I feel like I'm being welcomed as if I just grew up here," Arteaga said.
On TikTok LIVE, Arteaga promises that he will not pretend to be a local. He’s just actively trying to provide for the neighborhood through coffee, conversation, and just hearing people out.
“What I am providing, very much as an outsider, [is] an alternative option to the local coffee shops who are charging hella, where the quality is really on that level," Arteaga says.
Caffeineicide ~ 6201 York Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90042
