Our Story
For as long as many can remember, the stunning stretch of Route 34, the Costanera, has traced Costa Rica’s southern Pacific coast from Quepos to Panama. We’ve driven it wide-eyed with the ocean glittering on one side and the jungle rising on the other, meeting beauty at every turn. Along the way we would pass national parks, rivers, waterfalls and a daisy chain of lively surf towns—each with its own beloved coffee shop tucked away inside, often off the beaten path. But along the Costanera itself, from Quepos to Dominical, a good cup of coffee was nowhere to be found.
In 2025, we decided that needed to change.
We’re 5 good friends – some Tico, some American. We built this cafe through our shared love for good coffee and good company. Between us, we’ve spent over fifty years in the hospitality world, working across hotels, restaurants, taverns, and cafes from Costa Rica to the U.S. That time taught us plenty, but more than anything, it reminded us how much there always is to learn. The world doesn’t sit still, and neither does our curiosity. So when we built The Good Coffee Cafe, we kept our foundation simple and enduring: teamwork, creativity, and a steadfast commitment to our Hazlo Bien™ philosophy– do it well, and do it with heart.
(note: Hazlo Bien™ is explained below, but can only be experienced when you arrive here)
Meet our diverse and convivial crew: Priscilla Sanchez, Alfonso Santamaria, Alexa Romano, Rodbin “Roscoe” Bonilla and Sean Barrett. Some of us go way back—to the pre-WhatsApp days when people communicated on local job sites with walkie-talkies. Some of us have professional awards, advanced degrees, and deep specialization in hospitality; others simply know how to read a room and make people feel at home. Some of us prefer working in the front of house, and others prefer the back. But we all agree on one thing: coffee should be good, and people should feel good drinking it.
So we built this place with just that in mind—a cafe grounded in five essentials:
Good coffee, delicious food, kind people, a safe and friendly space, and music that makes you want to stay awhile.
What We Believe
• We source our beans exclusively from women-led coffee farms in Costa Rica, and we do our best to keep the rest of our ingredients local by sourcing from nearby producers we know and trust.
• We rely on woman-owned firms: our architects, lawyers, designers, and even our food and beverage consultants. Not by accident—by intention.
• We’re not into fancy coffee fads. You won’t find “coffee waves” here unless they’re the kind we use to say hello, or the kind rolling in from our neighboring surf towns.
• We compost. We recycle. We save 100% of our spent coffee grounds for fertilizing local farms and resort gardens. Plastic is avoided whenever and wherever possible.
• We repurpose raw material. The reclaimed live edge bartops and salvaged driftwood shelving all lived long lives before being crafted by local artisans into our space. In fact, our deeply grained Guanacaste bartop was milled from a local tree that stood for more than five hundred (500!) years before it was uprooted and felled by a powerful storm in nearby Paquito.
• We don’t have high-speed WiFi. But we do have local artwork and photography on our walls we hope you’ll actually look at. No distractions. Just presence.
• We teach free barista classes to local high school seniors who seek to gain hospitality skills and experience.
• We support first responders and locals in uniform by extending a 50% discount for all coffee beverage purchases to all uniformed Costa Rican firefighters, police officers, hospital workers and Coast Guard personnel.
• We celebrate LIFE! If it’s your birthday, your coffee’s on us
• Above all, we prioritize safety. On the roads, in the kitchen, in the energy we bring into this space. Everything begins there.
Our Hazlo Bien™ Philosophy
Make it good. It is important to us that you feel the intention and care weaved into everything we do.
At a time when headlines feel heavy, we wanted to create a space that offers the opposite: lightness, welcome, ease. Something good.
Hazlo Bien: means whatever we do, we do it with care. Whether it’s the cup we hand you or the conversation we hold space for, we try to make it good—every time.
So come by and say hi. There’s some goodness awaiting you here.