LOS ANGELES — Over here at the HHQ, we’ve been aching for a musical interpretation of our philosophies on coffee. Especially if such a thing could be done with dance moves and comedic asides.

Well don’t that beat all. Lookie here.

Thanks to The Apple Sisters (@TheAppleSisters) and the cast of thousands that made this possible. 

NEW YORK — Hello everyone, J. Park here (@jparkbrannen). I am excited to tell every one that the much adored Iris Café (www.iriscafenyc.com) in Brooklyn, NY has opened its second location just down the street at 22 Columbia Place.

We at Handsome are proud to be a part of both the new location and Iris’s first location two doors down. You can find amazing food, as well as delicious coffee under one roof.

The owner, Rachel Graville, has been a dear friend of mine for years and I was giddy to hear she wanted to bring us on to her coffee program for both locations. The original café is consistently one of the better places to dine and enjoy coffee in New York, serving both sit down diners as well as an increasingly busy to-go business.

Having become a big part of the community in Willowtown (the part of Brooklyn Heights where Iris is located), Rachel learned people wanted more of the café than she could effectively serve. After months of cooking up a plan, Rachel with her business partner Salah Hamden, had the great idea to open up a small grocery location (in the big city, we call it a bodega).  Selling fresh fruit and vegetables, a large supply of dry goods along side a full menu of coffee drinks as well as making all of the food served at Iris Café to take away.

Over the past two months I’ve been working with the head of the coffee program, Sarah Blackwell, on integrating Handsome into the already great coffee bar. Not only did the crew at Iris take to the training, but they also switched to the more straightforward menu we use at our own coffee bar in downtown Los Angeles. The staff at Iris have been incredibly eager to learn, and took to our system quite well. I can’t tell you how excited I am to see my favorite café get even better.

HHQ — Because around 1:00AM someone smashed one of our windows and took an iPad.  Wait, no, that sucked!  

    But there’s a silver lining that makes our loss a net gain. How so? Because we found out that we have some great friends in this little town of ours. 

    The smash and grab took place right around midnight. But no matter the hour, some of the most upstanding folks in Los Angeles (which puts them high in the running for most upstanding worldwide) waited by our broken door until we had been alerted and the LAPD had arrived. It’s just like Main Street, Anytown, USA, folks.

    And we’d like to thank these gents for looking out for us, and really making the Arts District the community that it is.  We’ve said it since we started, there really was nowhere else that Handsome wanted to be. This neighborhood welcomed us with a warm smile.  And we love it.  

    Huge thanks to Wolf Hudson, Johnny White, and Marc Free for being the greatest neighbors anyone could ask for.  Thanks for having our back.  

—Tyler Wells (& the rest of us, too)