Knick Knacks For a Revolution
It’s Miriah - co-founder & owner of Revolution Roasters. I’m here to share a little gem about Revo’s journey that you may not know.
I grew up in the small foothill hippie town of Sierra Madre, California. My dad was a chiropractor by trade, but spent his spare time collecting antiques - thus my childhood home was a revolving door of unique eclectica. I spent Friday nights with my dad “plotting the course”— mapping out the yard sales we’d hit at the crack of dawn the next morning. Each weekend (when he managed to successfully drag me out of bed), we’d spend our mornings digging through people’s garages and gardens looking for treasures he’d either use to decorate our home or resell at the local swap meet.
Eventually my dad retired from his chiropractic business to follow what he really loved and became an antique dealer full time. He has always had an eye for the most unique oddities. Some have style in fashion, some in food - my dad has a serious eye for old stuff. “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure” rings very true with my old man. When I was a kid I was very insecure about the unique nature of our home. I avoided inviting friends over because of the “weird” things that decorated the walls and shelves. Most houses I admired had white picket fences or newly remodeled kitchens - ours had the smell and look of an antique store. Quirky, interesting, distinctly unique, and (although at the time I didn’t realize it) - SO cool.
Fast forward thirty years - my dad was down visiting and helping me hunt for the location of the first Revolution Roasters cafe. While driving around Oceanside looking for “For Lease” signs, we stumbled across an antique shop at 1836 S. Coast Highway called Treasures on the Coast. Naturally, we had to stop. While my dad happily dug through piles of mostly junk, I noticed a “For Sale” sign tucked into the front window. My dad chuckled when I mentioned maybe this could be the home for our first cafe. After much begging, convincing, and borrowing (literally) - Revo landed its first cafe location on the heels of Treasures on the Coast.
My dad has been one of the biggest inspirations behind Revo. He’s given endless advice and has had his hands on countless versions of this dream. He has fixed leaking sinks, hung light fixtures, hunted endless treasures for our spaces.
In 2015, just days before Revo Oceanside opened, we realized we’d somehow forgotten to budget for décor - small oversight! Two days before our grand opening, Rick rolled into Oceanside with his pickup truck piled with antiques and we spent the next 2 days slapsticking his collected treasures over the walls of Revo. Our original - somewhat controversial - boar's head was part of this truckload.
To this day, you’ll still find many of those same oddities hanging throughout our Oceanside café, along with more pieces from my dad’s collection that eventually found their way into our Carlsbad location. The WWI model airplane hanging from the ceiling of Revo Carlsbad (which, according to my dad,“actually flew by remote control at one point”) used to hang from the rafters of my childhood living room.
No white picket fence, but looking back I realized what a hip dude my dad was. In a day of box stores and ultra-curated spaces, I’m so grateful for the way our community has embraced Revo’s unique flair & odd decor that my dad gifted me over the years. Each café holds little pieces of his collection—and in a way, little pieces of my childhood living room.
For the past 25 years Rick has run a small antique shop in Pasadena called Uncharted Antiques. Every time I visit, I’m blown away by his eye for art, design, and the unexpected collection that he curates. He is not much for social media, but the shop is the real deal. If you’re ever in the area, it’s absolutely worth a visit.
Here’s to my pops, whose Uncharted way of seeing the world reaches farther than he could have imagined. Rick has always marched to the beat of his own drummer, and I’m forever grateful for the way he has influenced me and helped shape Revo into what it is today. Every person who walks through our doors gets to experience a little piece of Rick’s love for the path less traveled. And if they don’t like it… “The hell with ‘em.”...as he would say ;)
