Buenas Coffee

The Dirty Horchata with three espresso shots is the order. Buenas runs out of a tucked-away corner of a Costa Mesa business park on Paularino, blending Latin-inflected drinks with specialty coffee, and the menu is where the personality lives. Iced Palo Santo. A Brown Sugar Patrick cortado. Mallows and Molasses, which is toasted marshmallow with brown butter and molasses, and somehow works as a drink rather than as a dessert. A cold brew with sweet corn foam. There is also a secret menu drink that regulars know to ask about by name.

The room is charming and Latin-inflected, with colorful decor and work from local artists on the walls. Indoor and outdoor seating. Outlets at each table, which signals the operation built the room for stay-and-work customers rather than designing it for Instagram and discovering people wanted to sit. A "creative corner" with activities laid out is the kind of touch that makes the room feel made for repeat visits rather than the one-time Instagram visit.

Baristas (SJ, Emily, Eli, Sam) get named by regulars often enough that the names are part of the place. The food side carries homemade horchata and an elote pastry that nod to the Latin program, alongside a concha, a chorizo empanada, and vegan pop tarts sourced from a Long Beach baker. The empanada and the concha are the food orders that pair best with the Dirty Horchata.

The parking is the easy industrial-lot kind, which is a feature once you know it exists. The shop is less obvious if you are just driving through the business park, so the discovery happens through word-of-mouth more than walk-up traffic. That is part of the appeal. A coffee shop with a real Latin program tucked into a business park is the kind of place customers tell friends about with a sense of having earned the find.

Remote workers and students looking for a quiet table with wifi and plenty of parking find what they came for. Coffee drinkers interested in Latin flavors and creative seasonals find a menu built around those interests. The second drink probably will not be the same as the first, because the menu is designed to make a second order feel different from the first, and the secret-menu option is there for the customers ready to go to the third.