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Hilltop Coffee + Kitchen founders Yonnie Hagos and Ajay Relan wanted to create a mission-driven space.
The Hilltop team (including entertainer/entrepreneur Issa Rae) consistently exceeds guest expectations with welcoming community spaces and family-friendly hospitality, enhanced by the restaurant’s new technology.
You can expect good food and good vibes when you sit down at Hilltop Coffee.
Hilltop Coffee has been mission-driven since day one. The “community-led café” was founded to help people “keep climbing.”
“We both found ways to give back to the community we grew up in,” Ajay said.
After the men became fathers and their lives changed, they started thinking about all the time they started spending in bars.
“Many things that advance humanity often begin inside a bar,” Ajay Relan told Cali BBQ Media’s Shawn Walchef during a visit to the bar/restaurant chain. “So we were thinking about the space we wanted to create, something that had this embodied energy.”
Find your hill
Both Ajay Relan and Yonnie Hagos grew up in the Los Angeles area. Each of them soon found hospitality and entrepreneurship. The pair solidified their partnership at The Parlor restaurant and sports bar in Hollywood.
The name Hilltop came to Yonnie and Ajay as they stood atop a hill outside their first location in Inglewood. It soon took on a more metaphorical meaning.
“We thought about what Hilltop really meant. It was this thing that connected us all as human beings. We’re all climbing something,” Ajay said during the taping of the streaming series Toast Family Style.
“We all have goals and we all have obstacles that we must overcome to achieve them. We are all scaling our heights.”
Issa Rae became involved in Hilltop Coffee as a partner because of her shared love of coffee shops, business and community. She also grew up in Inglewood. Issa is such an important part of the community that in 2022 the mayor even gave her the keys to the city.
South LA was chosen for the first Hilltop location because both Ajay and Yonnie knew it deserved more options for places where people could spend their time.
“We wanted to create a place where people could come and do bar stuff,” Ajay said.
They knew they wanted to offer quality ingredients. They knew they wanted to hire locally and develop new leaders. And they knew they wanted a place that people felt invited to call their own.
Hilltop Coffee is much more than a coffee shop. For example, how many bars offer an extensive menu and a full liquor license? In addition to its unique offerings, Hilltop stands out for its sincerity of purpose.
“You just give the customer all the credit in the world… they could spend their money anywhere. And if for 1 minute they don’t feel authentic, then you start to lose it,” Ajay said.
Technology like Toast has given Hilltop a big advantage in terms of ensuring it can connect with as many customers as possible. They provide human touch on a large scale with the help of technological tools.
Hilltop was successful because the founders built something for themselves.
“Everything we built we built for ourselves,” Ajay said. “A lot of it comes from our lived experiences… It passes our taste tests, both from a product standpoint, but also from an experience standpoint.”
Yonnie said the Hilltop team is built slowly over time to ensure the right environment is fostered. You have to manifest the culture you want, she added.
“We’re very slow to hire. We take our time, we make sure we have the right people. Every hire matters.”
They’re proud to say that every store manager at all four Hilltop Coffee + Kitchen locations started out as an entry-level barista or cook.
“It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it,” Yonnie said. “For example, we are actually living this mission.
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