Tiny Warrior Coffee calls it quits, talks split with Alite Outpost

There had been hope of reopening, but Tiny Warrior Coffee has given up the fight.

The popular coffee shop, which lost its lease in the Mission on its one-year anniversary in October, has officially called it quits after Heath Kessler decided he did not want to continue the business, said his former business partner Glenn Scott Matthews.

Kessler will retain rights to the Tiny Warrior name and image. Matthews hopes to one day launch a new venture in the Mission, most likely involving coffee.

“I fell in love with this neighborhood in a way I didn’t think I was going to,” Matthews explained. “I think I have a responsibility in terms of moving forward for our customers.”

Kessler did not respond to a request for comment. But in an interview in which he gave for the first time his version of the circumstances that led Tiny Warrior to leave the Alite Outpost store on 18th Street, Matthews said Kessler was disillusioned following what he perceives as poor treatment by their old landlord Alite Designs.  

“He had his heart broken is really what it is,” he said.  

Back in October, Alite representative Amanda Durbin said Tiny Warrior knew their time was limited, and that their former cafe spot is an “incubation space for people to get their business ideas kick-started.

“The original intent was to have short-term leases for businesses to get their footing so that they could then graduate on to having their own spaces,” she said. “You should generally expect the Alite Outpost to have a new pop-up every year.”

But this week, Tae Kim, one of the founders of the high-end camping gear company, said Tiny Warrior’s departure had more to do with a personality clash.

“During the time together, there was too much friction between our companies to make it a worthwhile endeavor,” Kim wrote in an email. “Without getting into too much of the details, it was apparent that Tiny Warrior would ultimately benefit from having their own dedicated space rather than be part of a co-habitation space. This is ultimately why Alite decided not to extend their lease beyond the one-year period.”

But over coffee last month at Stable, Matthews said any conflicts between the companies were manageable and that Durbin’s comments were the first he’d heard of the so-called incubator idea.

Kim and Kessler were friends who first started talking about a cafe at Alite’s old Mariposa Street location, he said. When that didn’t work out, Tiny Warrior signed on to develop the cafe at 3376 18th St. and Kim verbally promised them a five-year lease, he said.

“He just wanted to do something with his friend Tae,” Matthews said of Kessler. “There was never any mention of an incubator. I don’t know where that came from.”

Kim said he couldn’t have promised Tiny Warrior a five-year lease because Alite Outpost’s is only three. He also questioned Matthews’ ability to speak about the lease, saying it was Kessler who did the negotiating. Robert Patterson, the owner of neighboring Ken Ken Ramen, who rents the space to Alite, declined to confirm the length of Alite’s lease.

In his email, Kim said Alite Outpost’s cafe space is rented to local entrepreneurs at below market with “no construction or build out costs.”

But Matthews said he and Kessler put lots of their own money into their build out and spent months helping with work to get the rest of Alite Outpost ready, painting, caulking and “everything you could think of.

“We weren’t going in there for [just] a year,” said Matthews, who estimates he and Kessler invested a total of $90,000 in their business.

Despite repeated requests, Kim lagged on giving Tiny Warrior a lease to sign, Matthews said. For that reason, he and Kessler eventually stopped working on the store beyond their cafe space.

“Looking back now, I feel like that was the point I should have walked away,” he said.

Six months in, an Alite executive finally provided them with a one-year lease that did not contain a non-compete clause, which also had been agreed to, Matthews said.

Matthews recalls the executive saying the shorter lease was nothing personal, “we just want to see how the relationship goes.

“They said ‘Trust us.’ We would never throw you out after a year,’” he said.

Believing in Kessler’s friendship with Kim, Tiny Warrior forged ahead, gaining a reputation for its iced coffees, in particular.

Matthews agrees that the relationship with Alite was not always amicable and said he’s “sure there was stuff on both sides.”

Still, he and Kessler were prepared to stick it out, but then began hearing rumors that Alite was not renewing its lease. Tiny Warrior’s last day at the store was Oct. 24, 2015.

Wholesome Bakery, a seven-year-old company that serves vegan baked goods, moved into Tiny Warrior’s old space in April. Owner Mandy Harper said last month there is no agreed-upon tenure for the bakery.

Negative experience aside, Matthews said he is proud of Tiny Warrior and the following it built.

“We were completely unknown when we came in there. At the end of the day, it seemed like we had the following. People were there for us, not for them,” he said.

Matthews, who moved to San Francisco from Savannah, Georgia, in 2014, said he’s also been embraced by the coffee community here and would like to have another coffee shop in the neighborhood.

“I’m just trying to figure out, what’s the solution for me?” he said.

[Photo via Tiny Warrior Coffee’s Facebook Page]