Manifesto Coffee

Manifesto's cafe sits on Hilltop, at 11th and South J beside the 1022 South J bar and Goodfella's Barber Shop. The company still roasts its own in downtown Tacoma, but not in this room: the roastery is a separate building, and Manifesto describes its main room as holding a private collection of classic cars beside a 25 pound San Franciscan in the production space.

It was founded by four friends with Israel Hickey on the roasting, starting on a San Franciscan six pound machine with a twenty five pound unit as the plan. The roasting leans light and medium. Reporting from the period had green coffee arriving from Ethiopia, Mexico and Papua New Guinea through a Vancouver importer, all of it single origin.

The room began at thirteen seats and grew to around thirty five when they took the adjacent space and moved the bar across. Natural light is heavy through the front and local artwork rotates on the walls.

One caveat worth stating plainly: the detailed reporting on Manifesto dates from 2016 to 2018, so the ownership, the green coffee origins and the food offering may all have moved since. What has certainly changed is the roasting, which moved out of the cafe and into a building of its own, so do not come looking for the machine.