Jillian Quint of Deltina Coffee Roasters on refining the evolution of the cafe.
Season 14, Episode 8 • The Free Coffee Tour 2025.
Editor’s note: Prefer the audio only or want to watch the podcast on Spotify? Click here! Or on Apple Podcasts.
Guest: Jillian Quint, Deltina Coffee Roasters
Based: Oceano and San Luis Obispo, CA
Online: www.deltinacoffeeroasters.com • @deltinacoffee
What they order: Oat milk cappuccino
The Coffee People Podcast took off in early June on our first-ever* Free Coffee Tour. We visited coffee shops and roasters along a meandering route from San Diego to Portland, OR, as we traveled to Coffeefest. At each stop, we recorded an episode of Coffee People and (tried) to buy people a cup of coffee. Thank you for watching and enjoying good coffee. Don't forget to tip your baristas!
The second location of Deltina Coffee Roasters has a different vibe from the original roasting facility. It is located across from Cal-Poly, where Jillian attended university (and, dare I say, possibly partied a time or two nearby). It is designed to be the kind of cafe that encourages lollygagging…er…I mean studying.
The ceilings are high and white. There is seating for casual lounging, solo studying, and long tables for groups. Soft pop music wafted over the patrons—loud enough to hear but not so loud you couldn’t pop on a pair of headphones. I arrived early and returned to my car to grab a laptop because it felt like the kind of environment conducive to getting a few pages written.
It is a happy, open space at a time when we need more happy spaces. At least I do. I arrived at the cafe fresh from visiting one of my own. I was camping along the California coast, which always takes a pleasant emotional toll on me. My heart and brain are arguing over the value of gratitude versus melancholy. The heavy waves were as hypnotic as the tall, waving grasses leading off into the woods high up on the hillsides.
If I arrived raw from my brush with nature, Jillian showed up with a refreshing openness and willingness to share. We cover a lot in a short period and then some. We spoke for another hour off-camera. She is thoughtful, well-spoken, and willing to engage even when the conversation veers off the rails.*
NOTES FROM THE SHOW
Deltina Coffee’s new location is a happy, open space.
The business was originally named Quintessa before being rebranded as Deltina Coffee Roasters. The name is a nod to one of the original names considered for the Oceano community, culled from a list dating back to 1892. Deltina is a reference where to the river delta formed between Pismo Beach and Oceano. A river delta creates an important ecological triangle where a faster-moving body of water meets a slower-moving one, like the river leading into an ocean or lake. That connecting point often forms a triangular shape mimicking the letter d or delta in the Greek alphabet. The cafe is also a place where two (or more) people meet, although the speeds at which they engage may not be as relevant.
Building community in a small town offers many challenges. None is greater than having the community begin to trust you. Communing with the businesses nearby was the first start for the Quints to make inroads into both Oceano and SLOE. The second key component was providing a product and service of a caliber that their new customers appreciate.
I clearly don’t understand how kids and/or parenting work, but I endorse Jillian’s point that adding a business to the family is like adding a child. It requires constant attention and nurturing to create foundational growth. The smart decisions for the business are not always smart decisions for the persons running the business. There is the straightforward profit/loss survival that works in tandem, or in direct opposition, with the emotional needs of the owners, employees, and customers.
Like it or not, the impacts on hospitality from the COVID-19 pandemic era are still with us. That time impacted how businesses are run and what tools are available to business owners and shifted the collective consumer audience’s decision-making when making buying choices.
I don’t see that going away even if, as a community, we are not requiring masks or arguing about local and national pandemic policy. Many coffee shops, in particular, learned how to do more with less. Customers became much more aware of the supply chain impacts affecting local businesses. Both became more discerning with how and where they were spending their money.According to Jillian, trusting your business (and life) partner is the key. It is the fundamental step in having real conversations about the business. Jillian and Jack have different working styles but work at maintaining bigger shared goals. One challenge is retaining awareness that those goals will evolve over time and creating space to make sure they are still on the same page.
Small businesses evolve. They install new syrup recipes, updating pos system, add to the roasting options, updating designs. There is a continuum of details that get shaped over time. Growth is part of that, but not the only goal. Sometimes, growth is about refining the space and processes that already exist.
Check out the Roaster’s Choice line of coffees.
*Most of my conversations quickly go off the rails!
IN CASE YOU MISSSED IT
Listen to our interview with Jillian’s husband and Deltina Coffee Roasters CoFounder Jack Quint on Spotify.
Deltina specializes in small-batch, organic specialty coffees. Our beans are mindfully sourced from traditional, sustainable farms located all over the world. All coffees are roasted on-site in small batches, allowing for consistent and precise flavor.
• deltinacoffeeroasters.com
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Shout out to our Presenting Sponsor Roastar, Inc. and our friend Nick Schmitt who is YouTube coffee famous.
COLLABORATION COFFEES!
We meet cool people. We collab on great coffees. FYI: we’re not generally allowed to touch the roasting machines. The experts do that! Current Collabs:
• Coffee Cycle Roasting (Pacific Beach/Ocean Beach, San Diego, CA) NEW!
We finally got all our bikes in a row. Coffee Sensei is a nod to my coffee origin story as the first barista hired at Coffee Cycle Roasting. The conversations between Chris and I on the slow mornings in the first days directly led to Roast! West Coast.
The coffee is a blend of Colombia, Ethiopia, and Sumatra (Indonesia) coffees. Each have a special place in the timeline of our friendship and me falling down the specialty coffee rabbit-hole. There is a special Easter egg on the package as nod to the very first time Chris made me drink Ethiopia coffees. Like many others, it changed my life for the better.
Coffee Sensei is a medium blend crafted from two coffee origins that were featured prominently on the Coffee Cycle menu in its early days—Colombia and Sumatra. The Colombia is a coffee that brings balance to the blend, with tasting notes of milk chocolate and caramel. The Sumatra adds a savory roundness and full body to make the cup truly satisfying. The Ethiopia Natural finishes the blend by contributing a hint of gentle acidity and sweetness.
• Relative Coffee Co. (Minneapolis, MN)
• Marea Coffee (Solana Beach, CA)* NEW!
Our new daily driver. Brew up a cup for your next dawn patrol. Works swell in the mountains or at the coast!
