Grid Coffee

Does the world really need another coffee and tea cafe? Having visited tons of them around Orange County, we’ve tried plenty that would lead us to say “not this one” – but occasionally something legitimately special pops up and makes us say “yes.” Grid Coffee is one of the special ones, founded in Diamond Bar in 2021 before opening in Santa Ana in mid-2025. Doors down from AYCE Sushi SCM, Crumbl, Kebab Kurry Express, and Xishang Roodle, Grid is only a short drive from South Coast Plaza and legitimately good alternatives such as MoonGoat, but we’re likely to make the extra effort to visit Grid instead.

The star attractions here are double pistachio lattes – available as matcha or caffe versions ($7.75 each) – both of which we’ve tried and loved across two separate visits. Though the matcha flavor naturally works better with Grid’s multiple pistachio layers, including a housemade concentrate syrup, pistachio cream, and ground fresh pistachios, each of these drinks is so wonderfully balanced between nutty, creamy, and either tea or coffee flavors and textures that we drank each of them down to the bottom of the cup; neither was overwhelmingly filled with ice, either.

Another set of Grid winners are their fruit-mixed drinks: we tried both their strawberry and blueberry caffe lattes ($6.25/medium, $7.25/large), each with a base of real fruit sauce at the bottom, topped with coffee and either whole or non-dairy milk (+$1) as preferred. The layers took a little work to mix with a straw, but went from tasting individually delicious to harmonizing properly; you can enjoy them either way. Additional fruit pairings with coffee or matcha include mango and banana cream, while strawberry sauce can also be paired with hibiscus ($5.50), cream milk ($6.50), and chocolate milk ($5.50/$6.50) here.