Philz Coffee

After 22 years of building a chain from one San Francisco cafe to 70 across California and Chicago, Oakland-based Philz Coffee famously destroyed much of its goodwill by selling itself to a private equity firm while stiffing some of its earliest worker-investors – a cloud that still hangs over its nine Orange County stores, even as its new LA-based owner plans new locations. But across two Huntington Beach mall stores (Pacific City (shown) and Bella Terra), Philz’ drinks keep flowing, though neither quickly nor impressively by local standards.

Rather than using strong, freshly pulled espresso shots to flavor its coffee drinks, Philz starts with pre-batched cold brew coffees, the sort of expediting exercise that skills baristas might call “a choice” rather than a great idea. Eleven different blended coffees are available across three broad categories – “dark & bold,” “medium & balanced,” and “light & bright” – with descriptions suggesting that Jacob’s Wonderbar includes dark chocolate, berry, and smoke notes, versus Ambrosia’s milk chocolate, dried berry, and almond. You’re supposed to order one of those 11 coffees, then select the heaviness and type of milk, a sweetness level, and size (small/$5, medium/$5.80, large/$6.15). “Featured creations” add additional spices, mint, honey, or cocoa for $1 more. A small selection of pastries are mostly between $4 and $6; the chocolate chip cookie and pistachio croissant we ordered looked good and tasted fairly fresh, but were flat on flavor.