Meet Mark Bell | Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mark Bell and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mark, every day, we about how much execution matters, but we think ideas matter as well. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
I had a friend who started a coffee shop in Mazatlan, Mexico who used his shop to give back to the local community and I got inspired to do something similar in Ocean Beach.

What should our readers know about your business?
OB Beans was inspired by a friend of ours in Mazatlán, Mexico who does a lot of humanitarian and missions work with people living in the dumps surrounding the city. He has a model where he launched a coffee roastery and several cafes around the city that helped supplement most of his community work. Not only did it fund his passion of helping people in poverty, but it also gave him an opportunity to connect with, and provide jobs for, people in the community. He seemed to create so much good with something so simple. Inspired by this, we came back to San Diego and began to dream about what it would look like to launch something similar in Ocean Beach to support the non-profits we were passionate about, and create a lot of good in our community. In July of 2015, OB Beans officially launched and we started roasting in our garage and selling in local farmers markets, online, and at events. In October of 2015 we went on our first sourcing trip to Oaxaca, Mexico to meet the famers of one of our specialty coffees. Since that trip our team has taken multiple sourcing trips to El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Tanzania. In June of 2016 we signed a lease for a retail and production location on Newport Ave, in the heart of Ocean Beach, to house our roasting operations, coffee bar, and a large community seating space. In May of 2017 we received our “A” and opened our doors for the first time to the public so everyone could experience and enjoy high quality specialty coffee and connect with our mission of Doing Good.. Farm to Cup.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Because I live and work in Ocean Beach, I’d love to recommend some spots in my hood! So for the best coffee, obviously OB Beans Coffee Roasters. To eat and drink: Raglans, OB Noodle, Pizza Port, La Doña and It’s Raw Poke. To do: Surf the pier, walk Sunset Cliffs and bring your dog to dog beach past Tower 5

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We want to shoutout our amazing community for constantly supporting us and continuing to help grow our small business!

Website: obbeans.com
Instagram: ob.beans