There are few things more satisfying than a hot cup of coffee, especially after two hours in the ocean at Stinson Beach.
And as it turns out, along with fresh made pistachio-filled pastries and black bean breakfast burritos, Parkside Café’s kiosk offers a range of coffee options prepared with beans from a revered roastery that has been quietly selling their coffee out of a storefront on Columbus Avenue in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood since 1935.
Graffeo Coffee is San Francisco’s oldest roastery.
While the flagship storefront remains in the very same location it began in 90 years ago, a smaller roastery was opened in 1977 at 1314 Fourth St. in San Rafael when owner Luciano Repetto moved to Marin so he could cut down on his commute and split his time between the two locations. Repetto recalls a bustling downtown where shoppers often complained about how hard it was to park when they would stop in to purchase their weekly fresh-roasted supply of Graffeo beans.
The now 80-year-old Repetto has long since moved back to San Francisco and recently spoke about Graffeo’s storied history to a handful of interested folks from the Italian Community Services, a nearby neighborhood group.
“We only do one thing here—we don’t have croissants, cute aprons or CDs,” he explains. “We roast specialty coffee, and our emphasis has always been on freshness.”
The store at 735 Columbus Ave. was originally owned and operated by Sicilian immigrant Giovanni Graffeo from 1935 until his death in 1944. The subsequent owner, Antonio Spinelli, also from Sicily, sold coffee, olive oil and pasta to his customers out of the same storefront for almost eight years until he passed away.
That space remained shuttered for more than a year, until Repetto’s father, Giovanni, who had learned to roast coffee from his father in Liguria, bought the store in 1953. The third-generation coffee roaster whose own father had honed his craft aboard ocean sailing ships, roasting beans for the crews in 1890, would go on to operate Graffeo for 23 years.
Today, the first-generation Italian American Repetto continues in his father’s footsteps. “I got rid of my suits and ties from my sales job and came back to run the business when my father retired in 1978,” says Repetto, who has been quietly and meticulously building Graffeo into what it is today—a luxury roast coveted by coffee lovers across the nation.
Graffeo offers only one blend of beans—roasted two ways—Dark Roast and Light Roast made from a special blend of beans from Colombia, New Guinea and Costa Rica. There is also a Swiss Water Decaf option.
Repetto has steered away from the drum roasting method used by most coffee roasters and instead goes with a more precise temperature-controlled fluid bed technique that he learned from a chemical engineer, Mike Sivetz in Oregon, who specialized in coffee processing. He has expertly refined and calibrated the process over decades and patiently explains how there is no fluid used in the process—the fluid refers to the way the beans act like fluid in a bed of air.
“We roast completely by temperature,” explains Repetto. He adds that beans roast from the inside out, with this temperature-controlled convection method allowing them to be roasted evenly all the way through.
While the majority of Graffeo’s beans are roasted in San Francisco’s 2000 square foot space, the Fourth Street roastery is smaller and limits its roasting output to no more than 50 pounds per day. The setup is almost identical to San Francisco; an old school computer manually controls a ceiling high roaster where the beans are precisely roasted by the same fluid bed process utilized in North Beach.
Joey Edelman is the friendly face behind the counter at the sparse Fourth Street location, where he learned the ropes from Repetto four years ago. He has become a fixture at the Marin outpost. “Luciano is really the genius of this operation. He not only built these roasters, but he also created a lot of the clientele,” explains Edelman, adding that many of the customers will have nothing else.
Edelman expertly weighs and serves up one-pound bags of beans to longtime regulars who come into the no-frills storefront. He also maintains a robust mail-order list of hundreds of customers who have moved away from the Bay Area and have remained loyal to Graffeo, refusing to give up their favorite coffee.
Since freshness of the beans is paramount to Graffeo, they only roast a small selection of beans (350 to 450 pounds daily) and sell everything they roast. Arguably, the smaller output in Marin might be even fresher than the beans roasted over the bridge, as presumably the entire small batch is always sold out.
Unsurprisingly, Repetto is no longer doing all the roasting himself and leaves most of the demanding physical work to a small team. But when he was asked about his plans for continuing the business, his response was, “I don’t know—I never think of it.” That is until a year and a half ago, when he was introduced to Walter A. Haas III, grandson of Walter A. Haas Jr., the late president of Levi Strauss & Co.
After a year of negotiations, sixth-generation San Franciscan Walter Haas acquired a controlling stake of Graffeo from Repetto, who remains a partner and co-owner. “We haven’t changed the product at all—the blend is the same, and the personnel are the same. The only difference is that we’ve expanded online, and I’m not here all the time—which is really cool,” jokes Repetto, who has only praise for Haas and calls him a very capable guy.
The admiration appears mutual, as Haas is quick to acknowledge Repetto. “None of this could have been possible without the thousands of hours that Repetto has put in. He is a true innovator. He is beyond ahead of his time,” says Haas, who now views his job as a marketing one. This entails getting coffee into people’s hands, and the rest is done, he adds confidently.
Of course, the Haas name is well known in the Bay Area and is synonymous with not only Levi Strauss, the Oakland A’s and a law school, but also for generous philanthropic efforts. In keeping with his family’s legacy, Haas has partnered with The Phoenix, an addiction recovery organization, to create “The Phoenix Blend” coffee. For every bag of this special roast sold, Graffeo donates $10 to The Phoenix to support its free, sober activities across the country.
While plans to expand Graffeo’s footprint are underway—especially in fine restaurants and specialty stores (it’s currently in about 100 restaurants and grocery stores, including Mill Valley Market, Woodlands, Scotty’s, Parkside and many more in San Francisco), the storefronts will remain largely the same. Haas says he intends to grow Graffeo’s presence in a considered and thoughtful way while preserving its rich history and timeless approach.
Perhaps Repetto said it best: “You have an old established label, now in the hands of an old established family.”
To experience this legacy coffee, visit one of the roastery locations to pick up beans at 735 Columbus Ave. in San Francisco or at 1314 Fourth St. in San Rafael. Graffeo will also be serving up its specialty brew at the upcoming sfcoffeefestival.com in Fort Mason.
