Meet Natalia and Darren La Borie of Muddy Paw Coffee Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalia and Darren La Borie.

Natalia and Darren, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Muddy Paw Coffee was founded after seeing all the needs that small and big organizations had during hurricane Katrina.

We thought on what could be done which is how we spawned the idea of helping local, small animal associations and animal advocates in communities across the country. Our mission is simple. Serve and/or deliver an amazing cup of coffee and now tea, while helping local animal advocates making a difference in their community.

With 25 years of experience roasting small-batch coffee, we opened our first shop in Silver Lake five years ago to help advocates in the Los Angeles community that are working on making a difference for our local four-legged friends in need as well as provide a communal space that our two and four-legged friends can hang together.

Has it been a smooth road?
We live in Los Angeles and like all big cities, the cost of opening a small business is high. We open our storefront in Silverlake about five years ago. We didn’t have much money and the permits, equipment took a lot from us. We did most of the work ourselves.

This is all paint, cabinets, doors, outdoor patio. We did not have any employees, so Darren worked all day there and I came during the weekends to help. It was all done by the two of us, all the shopping, the customer service, the maintenance, cleaning. It took us about one year to start hiring.

It was a lot of work, stressful at times and surely tiring, however, we would not be where we are if had not gone through all of that. We know the cost of everything, we know how to pull it apart and pull it back together. We both know what kind of client we have and what the needs are. It surely makes it a lot earlier today to share that with our employees.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
We have been roasting coffee for about 25 years. Is a family business that runs from the east coast. We are traditional Italian Roasters. We roast our grounds every week and we ship source our coffee from all over the world. Our coffee is not the traditional “trend”, the cup of joe in our shop comes with full knowledge of the terrain where it was harvest.

Our drink menus are also very different, from our seasonal “Mojioto” during summer to the very famous “Wag the tail”, our best seller. We infuse our coffee and teas with PRIME ingredients.

What makes us proud? We are not snobby about coffee, we understand that sometimes, you just want to a cup a warm caffeine, we won’t bother you on how we THINK you should have the coffee. We just hope that you love it… and come back from more. Of course, knowing that with every purchase, we are helping our four legged fronds makes us SO happy.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Absolutely!

We have seen in the last few years and we hear this every day. People want to help… but don’t have time or know how to. Why not create a business that does that without any ties, no asking “to donate a dollar”, not showing you a sad face. Just with a purchase… you helped!

The community loves to help.. other business in the area love to partner with us and, of course, you create loyalty, that last one is the KEY for a successful business.

Contact Info:

• Address: 3318 Sunset Blvd.
• Website: www.muddypawcoffee.com
• Phone: 323-300-8734
• Email: info@muddypaw.com
• Instagram: muddypawla
• Facebook: muddypawla
• Twitter: muddypawla
• Yelp: muddypawcoffee

Image Credit:
Abby – our Puggle – Muddy Paw Ambassador, Muddy Paw Pup-stomer, Muddy Paw Street welcome sign, US – Darren and Natalia La Borie – Maple (pitbul) – Abby (Puggle) – Santana (Shar-pei)

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.