Written by Jordan Michelman.
Autumn is my favorite season: the cool air, the early dusk, the change in colors and flavors. But what if you live somewhere with less of a seasonal impact experience? The sort of place where the difference between, say, October and May is a matter of merely “hot” or “less hot”?
In Las Vegas, Nevada—a major conurbation entirely surrounded by the mighty Mojave Desert—the flavors and feelings of fall are less about any sort of major temperature shift or environmental changes, and more about vibes. The city is home to an outstanding coffee scene, with homegrown heroes, out-of-town outposts, and a raft of cocktailers, bartenders, and even chefs who are working with coffee in compelling ways. One of my favorite places to visit here is the foundational local roaster-retailer brand Vesta Coffee, which launched in 2016 and now has multiple locations across the LV area. Their shop in the Las Vegas Arts District feels truly representative of that deeply cool neighborhood: a mix of locals and savvy visitors, all drawn by the cafe’s outstanding food program and thoughtful approach to specialty coffee.
It was my pleasure to talk with Vesta founder Jerad Jay about how his company thinks about seasonality through a distinctly Las Vegas lens. Nostalgia, memories of home, and the creation of new traditions are all part of what’s happening here—and yes, of course that means an excellent take on the mighty PSL, with a battalion of gear from La Marzocco helping power the way.
Hey Jerad — thanks so much for speaking with me. As a jump-off point, please tell me about how Vesta got started, and the brand’s footprint so far.
No problem. So—Vesta Coffee Roasters is a Las Vegas coffee company. We have four locations right now, with a fifth under construction. Our original location is in the Las Vegas Arts District; our other cafes are in Summerlin, inside the Durango Resort, and then a new one coming soon to Blue Diamond, which is deep in the southwest corner of Las Vegas.
I’m from San Diego originally, but I’ve lived here in Las Vegas for 25 years. My experience prior to opening Vesta was as a hobbyist coffee roaster—I had no barista experience or anything like that. I come from a restaurant and beverage industry background. Today we have a full scratch bakery, multiple cafes, and around 50-60 total employees across the company.
On recent visits to Vesta, I’ve been really impressed by your signature drink program. How does your cafe develop signature drinks? What does that process look like? And what gear are you using behind the bar?
We start by taking ideas from the staff. They’ll give ideas, we’ll help them refine them, and then alongside my head of operations, Dale Capistrano, we’re able to work these concepts into something that will fit our style of service and scalability. We’re typically offering at least two signature coffee drinks at a time, as well as specials built around matcha and hojicha. It’s a fun process, and it involves a lot of input and iteration from our staff—our team here is so creative, and our staff really does care about making something nice.
We’re using a Linea PB AV two-group machine at all of our cafes right now. At the newest cafe we’re getting ready to open, we’ll have a three-group Modbar setup that I’m really excited about.
Talk to me about how seasonality impacts this process, especially in fall. How are you able to think about signature drinks in a way that’s tethered to Vesta and Las Vegas?
It’s weird, you know. Vegas doesn’t have four seasons, but the people who live here come from all over the world, and so I think there’s still a real longing for seasonality from the people who come through our doors. Even though seasonality isn’t reflected in our actual weather here, there’s still this longing or yearning for what fall means to people all the same. And so we want to try and create that in our experience here by incorporating the flavors people associate with fall in our menu. Warming spices, ingredients with autumn history, things like that.
I’m asking everyone in this interview series about the Pumpkin Spice Latte of it all—when you’re talking about seasonal warming spices and flavors, are you referring to the PSL? Talk to me more about this.
No, not exactly. The first time we finally did a full-on take on the PSL was just last year. For years we said “we’re not gonna do it, we’re not gonna do it”, even though customers would come in and request it. We had this idea that, like, the PSL is not what specialty coffee is supposed to be. But at the end of the day, people come in here because they want something to enjoy, they like being here, and they want to feel seen and heard. So what’s holding us up?
So last year we did a drink called “Not A PSL” and this was us finally giving in to the whole thing.
Yes, basically. We made everything literally from scratch, starting with pumpkin puree. There was no chemical engineering. We took a puree of fresh pumpkin, added spices and brown sugar, and made it into a syrup. It was almost like extracting the flavor of the puree, but keeping the cup clean along the way. We make all our syrups in-house, and so this was just adding another component to that. Vesta is a scratch kitchen—we make everything from scratch that we serve here, except for the potato chips and the ketchup. Our food offering has an enormous amount of effort that goes into it, and we’re doing that same level of effort for all of our drinks as well.
How did the “Not A PSL” go over with your customers?
It did well. And I think that’s great, you know? Sometimes people come in here, and they order an anaerobic coffee from Colombia. And sometimes they come in, and they want a sweet treat. We had to start by letting our guard down. And it did pretty well. We challenge ourselves to never repeat a seasonal drink at Vesta, but something like this will likely be back for fall in the years to come.
Vesta Coffee is located in Las Vegas. Visit their official website and follow them on Instagram for more information.
