Dawn Does Coffee, Dusk Does Drinks at Drift Hotel

Innovative hospitality is on full display along the bustling 500 block of State Street, at least for those who book a room at Drift Hotel. There’s no physical lobby, the check-in process is totally digital, and the developers’ ability to make the 160-square-foot rooms feel well-equipped while still welcoming — especially considering they were most recently used by the Church of Scientology for who knows what — represents enviable time-saving technology and space-saving design worthy of emulation.

For those who live here, or are otherwise not inclined to pay $270 to $600 for the overnight experience, Drift’s open-to-the-public downstairs embraces efficiency in its own unique ways. On the left-hand side is a sunny coffee shop called Dawn that serves made-to-order, mixology-minded coffee and tea drinks from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. Then, on the right side of what would traditionally be a lobby, comes Dusk, a Baja-inspired, agave-focused, seafood-serving cocktail bar.

“We want to be a destination coffee shop in a destination hotel in a destination city,” head barista Alex Werth told me when I first visited a few months back. The St. Louis native with barista competition experience, who was swept up in Santa Barbara’s coffee culture during the pandemic, called Dawn a “third-wave specialty coffee shop” that prides itself on meticulous, specialized service. “Everything is made to be served right then and there,” he said.