Wish You Were Here Coffee Roasters

Wish You Were Here Coffee Roasters operates inside O'Donovan's Restaurant & Pub on East 3rd in Pomona, which means the cafe and the bar share a room. Rustic-industrial design, booths, bar seating, games available to rent, a water station. Weekend mornings fill up. Noise is real enough that one regular suggests headphones if you are trying to study, which is a useful piece of advice rather than a complaint.

The vanilla sage latte is the one to order. The team rests beans in sage before pulling it, which is the kind of detail that signals they are working at this rather than coasting on a flavored-syrup shortcut. The Oaxacan Mocha and the Bourbon Caramel Latte are the close runners-up. Chilaquiles handle the savory breakfast slot. Avocado toast and the breakfast sandwich do reliable work on the side. Free two-hour street parking helps in a way that downtown Pomona does not always extend to its visitors. The games-to-rent layer turns the room into something other than a standard cafe and something other than a standard bar.

This is a downtown Pomona room for students who do not mind background noise, brunch crowds, and casual remote workers who came prepared with headphones and a tolerance for ambient bar conversation. Anyone wanting a strictly quiet cafe will want to look elsewhere, because the bar context means a baseline of ambient activity that does not go away. For a creative latte, a substantial breakfast, and an unusual coffee-and-pub format, the place earns its corner. The vanilla sage is the order to walk in with. The chilaquiles are the plate to bring back to the booth. The shared-space arrangement with O'Donovan's is the personality, and the team has built the bar program to live alongside the pub rather than fight it. Pomona has plenty of quieter cafes for someone who needs silence. This is not one of them, and the bar program is the reason to come anyway.