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One of the best coffee shops in Hollister might also be one of the most hidden. Blooms Cafe, owned and operated by Isaura Meza, isn’t a storefront, a food truck, a pop-up or a drive-through.
It’s more of a “drive-up:” you park your car near her home, alert Meza, and she magically appears with a warm smile and your piping hot order. And the business she started last year out of necessity has, in her own metaphor, bloomed beautifully.
After years of working in healthcare and education, Meza was forced to leave her career to homeschool and care for her son, Angel. While her husband, Alex, worked full time, the family needed more income—a problem she solved while browsing TikTok.
“I saw people were opening coffee shops in their homes,” Meza said. “I thought, ‘No, I don’t know how to make coffee, so that’s not possible. I had no experience. And honestly, at that point I only had $500 saved up because I was not working.”
Husband Alex to the rescue. He bought her a Breville coffeemaker from Best Buy and told her, “Here you go. Start with this machine and see how it goes.”
Meza said it took about two months to master the process and, turning again to TikTok, she began looking at online trends and what Starbucks and Dutch Bros were missing out on or not doing well.
“They didn’t offer cookie butter, for example,” she said. “And for some of the things they offered, it was not the same as doing it home-based, where I can put more items into the cup. I was making mistakes, just like everyone, but I was learning.”
After experimenting with family and friends, including sister Jenny Meza, owner of Sweet al Amor, she took a short course on barista training in Los Angeles.
“I learned a lot about how to dial in beans,” Meza said, “including what type of beans to use to get the perfect shot. I learned about the crema on the espresso—once you can get the crema to be nice and toasty and gold, then you know you have a perfect coffee.”
Meza announced her business by starting to post on Instagram, the only social media she uses. With no other way to promote the business, she had to rely on word of mouth, which was, it is charitable to say, meager.
“I started with a small menu,” she said, “and I would post pictures of my drinks. Sometimes I would get two customers in a day, sometimes no customers at all. It was hard, but my son kept saying to me, ‘I know you did this because of me. You can do it, mom.’”
Initially she offered only three lattes, vanilla, banana and salted caramel, along with early adopter Regina Valentine’s favorite, iced coffee.
“I started following her account,” Valentine said, “and her drinks just look so delicious. Being known as an iced coffee queen, I had to give it a try. Honestly, it’s come to the point where she’s part of my daily routine. I start my mornings with some Blooms Cafe to get the day going.”
Valentine is particularly fond of Blooms’ seasonal “specialties” menu, which currently offers choices like Campfire S’Mores, Caramel Macadamia Nut, Teddy Grahams and Fruity Pebbles, a customer favorite that uses white chocolate and lavender latte topped with the breakfast cereal.
“Whenever she releases her new menu,” Valentine said, “it’s almost like a checklist for me. I’m going to go through every one and try them out. She’s got a magic touch; she puts care and quality into her products. And I’m happy to support someone who’s giving their dream a chance.”
Meza also had a small line of matcha drinks from the beginning, offering strawberry and banana. They have proven so popular she has expanded the menu considerably, including items like Lemon Zest Matcha on the current specialty menu. But, she said, matcha was a challenge in itself.
“It took me a while to get good at it,” she said. “It’s a complicated process, and I was using low-quality matcha. I started trying different kinds and now use a ceremonial matcha from Japan. It turns a dark green, and you can really taste it. We go through a kilo a month.”
Along with a new and more versatile coffee maker she purchased last September, Meza has branched out into some grab-and-go items. There are three yogurt choices, for example, which use vanilla yogurt with granola and fresh fruit like strawberries, bananas and blueberries. She then tops it with either cookie butter, coconut and honey or Nutella.
“In my mind,” she said, “I’m always thinking, ‘Okay, what can I do next?’”
Meza also offers three freshly squeezed lemonades, one flavored with blue raspberry, one with added mashed dragonfruit, and one with chunks of mango and strawberry. She also gets up every morning at 7 a.m. to prepare breakfast burritos made with crispy hash browns and ham, served with a side of homemade salsa.
A new (and much more expensive) coffee maker is budgeted toward the end of the year. And while she dreams of expanding to a food truck, at the moment she is satisfied with her just-inaugurated coffee cart, parked outside of her home and filled with bottles of iced coffee.
“I get the idea because I close at 3 p.m.,” Meza said. “It’s going to be outside until 8 p.m. every day. People can just come and grab and pay for their bottle of iced coffee and pour it over ice when they get home.”
As she becomes more successful, Meza said that watching her business grow and meeting new people has been more rewarding than she ever could have imagined. But her optimism in the business is readily apparent in the name she chose for it.
“It is just how I imagine things,” she said, “I always say you start down low as a seed, and then, like a flower, you’re going to start blooming, little by little. I never actually thought that I was going to be doing something like this, but here we are, and I really love it.”
Blooms Coffee can be ordered through Instagram.
Recommendations for future Eat, Drink, Savor articles can be emailed to roberteliason@benitolink.com.
BenitoLink thanks our underwriters, Hollister Super and Windmill Market, for helping expand the Eat, Drink, Savor series and for giving our readers the stories that interest them. Hollister Super (two stores in Hollister) and Windmill Market (in San Juan Bautista) support reporting on the inspired and creative people behind the many delicious food and drink products made in San Benito County. All editorial decisions are made by BenitoLink.
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