A Bridge Brewed in Design and Community
Step into a Red Bay Coffee shop, and the world outside quiets. Customers often describe the cafés as a “respite from the busy, noisy outside world — a moment of solace in a hectic day.” That atmosphere is no accident. It is the lived blend of two worlds: California and Copenhagen, where Red Bay’s founders, Keba and Rachel Konte, each absorbed a distinct but complementary cultural DNA.
Roots in San Francisco and Copenhagen
For Rachel, coffee was first about care. After her father passed away when she was only 6 years old. Rachel and her sister was raised by her single mother, in a small town outside Copenhagen. She remembers waking her mother up on school mornings, not with an alarm, but with the aroma of pour-over coffee. Under her moms direction, she measured out the scoops, brewed, and carried the cup to her bedside — “never a chore,” she recalls, but “a contribution to making our life work.”
For Keba the chocolatey notes of Graffeo’s Italian roastery in North Beach, where his mother introduced him to Italian coffee traditions and the coffee culture in the 1970’s San Francisco, set a lifelong association: coffee as love and community.
For Rachel, the influence comes from the Danish love for quality and design. Her mother taught art, drama and weaving at a traditional Danish Folk School “Højskole”, filling their home with quality handmade textiles — on tables, walls, and beds. Her father Werner Pawl was a painter, teacher and political Graphic illustrator. His abstract art adorned the walls of her childhood home and greatly impacted her love for art, color and shapes.
“That sense of balancing textiles with color, mood, and texture is still with me,” Rachel says.
It now guides how she curates textiles and materials in Red Bay cafés, creating harmony in spaces meant to feel welcome.
From Berkeley Beginnings to Cultural Belonging
In 2006, while Rachel was still working as denim designer at Levi’s and Keba was a working artist and photo journalist , he and Rachel opened their first café in Berkeley with partner Andrea Ali. For Rachel, a full time corporate job and a two daughters in the house, time was scarce, so she focused on her contributing to the interior design — A Danish vintage pendant lamp, A cool Nordic blue wall, that was used for art exhibits and a collection of American Eames chairs for the cafe tables — but also on the marketing and branding. Drawing on her Levi’s background, she created a line of limited-release apparel: New small collections of track jackets, sweatshirts, and T-shirts dropped every few months. Unlike typical coffee shop merch, these pieces became collectors’ items, fostering not just brand awareness but a community belonging.
Design Philosophy: Adaptive, Vintage, and Sustainable
Red Bay’s design language is rooted in sustainability, not as a buzzword but as a practice. “Our strength is transforming existing places,” Keba says and Rachel further explains. We prefer to inherit a location instead of building from scratch. We adapt what’s already there — reusing the infrastructure, but changing the look and feel to fit our brand. We often rotate design elements between cafés, reusing furniture or elements, sourcing from used restaurant supply stores and vintage shops. But as they take pride in being able to create cafes for an affordable budget, Rachel makes sure they are investing in high quality Scandinavian lighting from mid-century masters like Poul Henningsen and Secto Design. An example of that is their newest cafe at the historical San Francisco Ferrybuilding.
The result are spaces that feel curated and lived-in, like a home not a chain. The warmth of the oak wood slats — inspired by the 1970s childhood both Keba and Rachel share — harmonizes with California’s easygoing spirit. It’s a design approach that saves money, avoids waste, and radiates comfort.
California and Copenhagen: Coffee as a Global Connector
That blend of influences came into sharp focus when Red Bay collaborated with Bellwether Coffee in Copenhagen. Bellwether, a Berkeley-based pioneer in sustainable roasting, showcased its innovation at the World of Coffee conference in Copenhagen in 2024, winning Best New Product. For Rachel, it was a homecoming:
“It was a proud moment, bringing California and Copenhagen together — design, innovation, and sustainability in one place.”
This cultural and technological bridge echoes a new political one: California and Denmark’s recently signed sustainability partnership. Red Bay embodies that alliance — a California-born, Copenhagen-inspired company using coffee to connect cultures, communities, and ideas.
Hygge for the Holidays
This winter, Red Bay will release a limited holiday blend named after the Danish concept of hygge. For Rachel, hygge is no trend: “It’s something Danish people live every day — always lighting a candle, straightening a pillow, bringing beauty into every space at every possible moment.” Translated into coffee, the blend is designed to make people slow down, savor, and create warmth at home as they brew their coffee for family and friends during the holidays.
Sustainability You Can Hold
As a certified B Corp, Red Bay extends its design-forward sustainability to packaging. Limited release coffees come in reusable, collectible 10 oz cans. Customers can refill them with bulk coffee, eliminating plastic-lined bags, and display them as storage objects of beauty in their kitchens, office or studio. It’s sustainability, but also lifestyle design.
Beautiful Coffee to the People
Red Bay’s motto, Beautiful Coffee to the People, draws directly from California’s activist lineage. The phrase “All Power to the People” — coined by the Black Panther Party in Oakland in 1966, the same year Keba was born — serves as a guiding principle. For Red Bay, beautiful means sustainable, green, fair, just, and delicious. To the people means accessible, communal, and transformative.
A Cultural Touchstone
Today, Red Bay cafés are more than coffee shops. They host Sunday brunches by local chefs, coffee tastings, matcha festivals and film lectures. Customers describe them as welcoming sanctuaries — respites from the noise of city life, where design and culture intersect over a cup of freshly brewed coffee.
In that way, Red Bay mirrors the broader California–Denmark partnership: two forward-looking cultures, pioneering sustainability, connected through design, community, and care. And at the center of it all, coffee as the bridge.