Alfred Coffee Sails Into Marina Del Rey With Nautical Design

The space features floating cloud pendants from Mono Design, plywood shelving meant to mimic boat rudders, black-and-white baseboard tile, a porthole door, and a lacquered, curved serving counter.

“A heavy influence was yacht rock,” Bracer adds. “There’s a wall with album covers from Christopher Cross, Boz Scaggs, Pablo Cruise, and Captain and Tenille, as well as an impressive collection of brass model boats from John De Mott sourced from Ebay and Etsy.

While the naval-themed coffee shop may appear all fun and games, exquisite attention to detail allows the design to shine. “The theme is light but the construction is serious. If it wasn’t crafted so beautifully, it wouldn’t work,” Bracer says. For the tiled wall, which includes a cut-out window for to-go orders, extra care was given. “Getting the tiles perfectly squared so no tile was cut was hard and we had to work with the contractor to get the framing right, checking many times,” Barrett says. Plus, the wood veneer cabinets, which anchor the space, were hand-selected to achieve thoughtful patterning.

The “small but sweet” space, placed within a new-build commercial site, also has soaring ceilings, up to 25 feet. And while this could have felt drafty, a curved back-of-house space—a “building within a building” as the design duo have said—helps modulate the scale. “It feels surprisingly intimate,” Bracer says.