This Popular Haight Street Coffee Pop-Up Is Expanding Into a Big, New Space

While working at San Francisco’s Cafe Reveille, after working herself silly in New York real estate, Erica Ash decided she wanted to go to Paris. Once she returned to the Bay Area, she opened her own coffee company, Coffee Outthere. Now she’s making another big move, though a trip with far fewer miles to sojourn: She’s launching the 710 Collective right across the street from Indigo Vintage, where she sold coffee and pastries through a walk-up window. “I want to give back to the neighborhood that supported and embraced this little unknown coffee company,” Ash says.

The collective will bring a growing number of vendors, selling everything from candles and flowers to tee shirts and tote bags, under one roof. Ash’s plan is to run the cooperative and act as the food and drink draw amongst the myriad of small businesses. Collaborations with fellow vendors, increased seating indoors and outdoors (in the form of benches outside and a lounge inside the vintage section of the cooperative), and community events are all on the docket.

Erica Ash

Fans can expect the same dreamy-tasting indigo latte from Coffee Outthere alongside — on Saturdays and Sundays — doughnuts from Dynamo Donuts, as Ash is the only business in the Haight to carry them. Customers will also peruse racks of vintage clothes, candles, handmade jewelry, and graphic art. The space is, needless to say, big; it was the home of the beloved Booksmith for years, until the business shut down earlier this year. “I was staring at the space for almost a year” Ash says. “I thought, why don’t I take that space as an artists’ outlet?”

Ash began Coffee Outthere in early April 2020, at the start of the pandemic. She was a part of Indigo Vintage for the better part of a year, selling coffee out of the store every day. Now, she’s just waiting for the city to finish approving her permits to serve food and drink in the new space. Like her original pop-up, she wants the business to continue to be approachable and warm. It works, apparently, as Youtube wunderkind Emma Chamberlain visited the pop-up recently. “To be perfectly honest that is a Gen Z phenomenon, but a lot of the people who work at Indigo knew who she was,” Ash laughs. “I found out second hand I was in her presence. She ordered a black cold brew, nothing in it, and she is a nice tipper.”

The 710 Collective’s grand opening is planned for July 9.