Outer Dark Coffee Co

Mike Murphy co founded Holy Mountain Brewing and paints abstracts, and Outer Dark is what happened when he turned to coffee. He started roasting in January 2024 and opened this cafe, the brand's first, in July 2024, by which point the beans were already selling wholesale, direct and in grocery. His wife Tara is in it with him.

The name is not the Cormac McCarthy novel, whatever you assumed. Murphy ties it to the wavy line motif in his own paintings, a loose reference to floating through the outer dark of space, and to the way that line resembles smoke coming off a roaster. Those same murals are hand painted on the walls here.

The room is 600 square feet, black walls with canary yellow accents, high ceilings and big windows, designed with the Tacoma agency Fosters Creative. Two year round blends anchor the coffee: Form & Void, built for espresso, and The Feels on the dark side. Single origins have run to a Guji, an El Puente natural and a pink bourbon anaerobic. Pastries and breakfast sandwiches come in from local vendors.

One thing is in motion. Roasting has been happening on an older Diedrich IR-12 at RoasterWorks, a shared facility in Auburn, but Outer Dark has been reported moving production into its own space at the Rhodes Center on Broadway, entered off Court C. No opening date was announced, and a second downtown cafe has been floated without confirmation, so check both rather than assuming. Hours are 7am to 4pm on weekdays and 8am to 3pm at weekends.