Honey Lavender Dreams

The Boutique Coffee Culture of Peppers Cafe

Toni Quisano describes her boutique-style coffee shop, Peppers Cafe, as an intimate, community-centered space focused less on coffee science and more on drink curation.

Her approach is simple: talk to people, ask about their flavor preferences, and craft something personal. The goal, she said, is a welcoming, non-pretentious environment where creativity and connection matter more than technical expertise.

“I don’t want you to feel like you need to know everything about coffee to enjoy it here,” Quisano said.

Most of her syrups are made in-house, a process that lets her experiment with seasonal flavors that pair well with beans from her roaster. This summer, she’s serving up Irish Cream cold brew alongside tea refreshers — iced teas paired with sweet or palate-cleansing elements.

Quisano is also big on collaboration. A recent partnership with Catalina Tea Bar, a truck at West Harbor, is helping her expand her knowledge of tea curation. But her best-selling drink, no matter the season, remains the Honey Lavender Latte, made with her signature syrup.

Because her syrups are versatile, Quisano uses them in drinks like jasmine tea and matcha lattes, though she’s careful about pairings because of the bold flavors. She’s also experimented with traditional Mexican café de olla, made with unrefined sugar cane and cinnamon.

Her first collaboration was with her roaster, San Pedro-based Taza Coffee Co. That partnership came together by chance. Just as she secured her booth at Crafted, a local maker’s marketplace, Taza’s owner walked in with samples.

“I tried it and thought, oh God, this is so good,” Quisano said.

Beyond taste, their values aligned. Taza prioritizes fair trade and ethically sourced beans, often skipping middlemen to work directly with farms. At one point, the company sourced from a female-owned farm in Guatemala, she said.

“That mattered to me,” Quisano said. “The sustainability, the community impact — those are things I want to be part of my business too.”

Quisano, reared in Wilmington, attended South Shores Elementary and Dodson Middle School before joining the first graduating class at San Pedro High School’s Olguin campus.

After 2020, she was referred by the Youth WorkSource program to T’HO No Waste Cafe, where she got her start in coffee. She and the owner worked well together, but when the proprietor moved to Colorado, Quisano was left running the San Pedro shop.

“It was difficult to get a hold of her,” she said, laughing. “So she was like, ‘Let me not be stingy. Go ahead and try it out on your own like it’s yours now.’”

Quisano had never run a brick-and-mortar space, but suddenly she had her own coffee shop.

“I always wanted to be self-employed, I just didn’t know it was going to be a coffee shop,” she said. “I love coffee, so it’s great it worked out that way.”

She calls Crafted, where her cafe is based, “a really good stepping stone.

“I don’t think I would have been able to manage a brick-and-mortar on my own starting out,” Quisano said. “Crafted has people from all walks of life, people who’ve been in business for decades. Being here, I’ve learned a lot. It’s helped me build the foundation to someday have my own standalone space.”

When asked about her coffee culture, Quisano doesn’t hesitate.

“It’s about hospitality,” she said. “I like creating an experience for people, talking with them, figuring out what they’ll enjoy instead of just handing them a cup of caffeine. Coffee is a stimulant, a substance. If we’re going to indulge in it, it should be good quality, and it should taste good too.”

Peppers Cafe

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