Ritual Coffee Roasters

Overview

Eileen Hassi Rinaldi founded Ritual on Valencia Street in San Francisco's Mission District in 2005, opening the city's first brick-and-mortar cafe dedicated to third-wave specialty coffee. She started roasting on a 5kg Probat in the back of the cafe; under coffee buyer Ryan Brown, Ritual built one of the earliest relationship-based direct sourcing programs in the U.S.

Known for

• First third-wave specialty coffee bar in San Francisco (2005)
• Helped define California's lighter, Scandinavian-leaning roast style
• Independent and woman-owned — 20+ years under same founder
• Founding member of SF Made (with Mark Dwight of Rickshaw Bagworks)
• Outpost in SFO Harvey Milk Terminal 1B

Why it matters

The cafe that put San Francisco's third-wave reputation on the map and trained a generation of Bay Area baristas. Ritual is rare in third-wave for staying fully independent and woman-led across two decades while expanding into airport retail, canned coffee, and instant — without abandoning the lighter Scandinavian-influenced roast style it pioneered locally.

Production

head roaster

null

roaster machine

Originally a 5kg Probat in the cafe; production roastery in SoMa

roastery location

SoMa, San Francisco

annual volume tonnes

null

Café

This roaster operates a café.

Sources

• https://ritualcoffee.com/learn/about/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_Coffee_Roasters
• https://squareup.com/us/en/the-bottom-line/podcasts/forever-neighbor/ritual-coffee
• https://creativemornings.com/talks/eileen-rinaldi-founder-ceo-of-ritual-coffee-roasters
• https://www.bayareamade.us/coffee-talk-eileen-hassi-rinaldi-ritual-coffee-roasters/