A corner building at San Pablo Avenue and Alessandro Drive in Palm Desert that once sold guitars and amplifiers is now pulling espresso shots and roasting green coffee in full view of customers. Desert Kid Coffee, opened by childhood friends Katie Reed and Joseph Eccles, occupies the 5,402-square-foot space built in 1955 that formerly housed Musicians Outlet, and the pair have leaned into that history rather than paving over it.
The building holds personal weight for Eccles beyond nostalgia: it's where he took his first guitar lesson, according to the Coachella Valley Independent. Reed and Eccles are childhood friends, and old photos of the two of them growing up together now hang on the shop's walls, according to The Desert Sun. In photos taken by Desert Sun photographer Jay Calderon, barista Sunnybella Harmon is shown pouring a specialty drink for a customer inside the space.
From Tech Career and Classroom to a Shared Coffee Venture
The founders' paths to opening a cafe together took very different routes. Reed spent ten years working in New York City's tech sector before returning to Palm Desert to build a physical community gathering space, while Eccles taught at Shadow Hills High School and spent six years self-studying coffee roasting, per Coachella Magazine. That home-taught roasting knowledge now anchors the shop's daily operations, where brewing and testing equipment takes up a good portion of the building as staff try out different coffee varieties, according to the same Desert Sun gallery.
At the center of that setup is an in-house roastery visible through an interior glass wall, built around an Italian-made IMF RM15 commercial roaster, alongside a slow bar outfitted with a Modbar Pour-Over 2.0 system, as reported by Daily Coffee News. The roastery sources its raw green beans through importers including Royal Coffee and Red Fox Coffee Merchants, and it has also made direct-trade purchases, such as a bed-dried Geisha natural release from Panorama Coffees in Guatemala, the outlet notes. Beyond coffee, the shop offers baked goods available for order, according to the Desert Sun gallery.
A Building Designed to Echo the Desert Outside
The cafe's interior was built to feel like an extension of the landscape around it. A roll-up garage door opens onto outdoor patio lounge seating, natural wood is stained to echo native palm trees, and dark countertops are embedded with sand-like speckles, per Daily Coffee News. That desert-inspired approach carried into the branding, too: the owners partnered with New York creative agency The Working Assembly to build a visual identity drawing on local icons including the Cabazon Dinosaurs, desert superblooms, and the Chocolate Mountains, according to Creative Boom.
Keeping the Building's Music Roots Alive
To preserve the site's musical lineage, Desert Kid Coffee launched Desert Sounds, a live-recorded in-shop concert series featuring local Coachella Valley musicians, according to the Coachella Valley Independent. The building's past as a place where local children took lessons, bought instruments, or had them repaired is part of the shop's identity.
Part of a Bigger Change Along San Pablo Avenue
Desert Kid Coffee soft-opened its doors on April 9, timed just ahead of the Coachella Valley's spring festival season, the Coachella Valley Independent reported. Its arrival also lands amid an $8.5 million investment in San Pablo Avenue, according to WhatNow. A report from Luca Realty Trust also discusses San Pablo Avenue.
