The hottest new LA coffee shop is in this couple’s backyard: ‘People really want community’

It’s a sunny, 70-degree February afternoon in Los Angeles, and crowds have been pouring into Sydney Wayser and Isaac Watters’ home nonstop.

A stereo system filters music into their kitchen, dining area and through the open doors to their backyard, where dozens of people sip coffees, chat in groups or type away on their laptops.

The couple isn’t just entertaining friends and family. Wayser, 39, and Watters, 42, are the creators behind LA’s hottest new coffee shop, Granada, which the married couple runs out of their own home in Echo Park’s Angelino Heights.

Just over a month into their venture, they say they’re having their busiest day yet.

Like usual, they opened their doors at 9 a.m. Within hours they sold out of their pastry selection, had to DoorDash additional milk and called on a neighbor to go for an ice run. It’s 2:30 p.m. by the time I arrive, 30 minutes to close, and there’s still a line to order.

The fact that the home-based cafe has been such a hit in a town with “so many phenomenal coffee shops” is still a shock to Wayser, who says they “didn’t expect this at all.”

“I think that people really want community,” she says. “My guess is the part that feels so special is just the private intimacy of being in a house.”

Granada is one of the latest small businesses to open through California’s Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation, or MEHKO, program, which allows residents to make and sell food from their home.

Given the cafe’s instant success, more Angelenos could be opening their own micro-restaurants soon, meaning the new hottest place to hang out could literally be in your own backyard.

Wayser and Watters first heard about the MEHKO program last summer thanks to reporting from KCRW and The New York Times. The program was introduced in California in 2019 and authorized in LA County in 2024.

Wayser says she didn’t think much of it at first. Then, she became fixated.

The couple had regularly attended a neighbor’s family-style dinner hosted from their garage during the pandemic, which Wayser says felt like a home-based pop-up restaurant. They’d also specifically designed their own home, which they bought in 2019, for entertaining.

As a new mom, Wayser says she was figuring out how to spend her days with her 3-year-old daughter heading to preschool. As a musician, artist and designer, she was eager to find a new way to put her skills to use, especially with her work in film and TV up in the air as the industry struggles.

Wayser says she’s spent her career producing shows, planning events, managing business finances and running an LLC for her creative work. When she thinks about it, “I have been an entrepreneur my whole life,” she says. “I just didn’t really put it together, because it’s always been my art.”

She and her husband, a fellow musician and visual artist, have collaborated on design projects throughout their relationship, including their home. Running a coffee shop together sounded like a fun new experiment.

The couple spent months going through the process of getting a MEHKO permit, which includes food safety certification, business licensing and inspection from LA County’s Department of Public Health. They say the $597 application review fee was waived because they were among the first 1,000 businesses in the program. The annual health permit for MEHKO businesses, which covers annual inspections and enforcement, costs $347.

The MEHKO program sets a cap on gross annual sales of $100,000; businesses are limited to 30 meals per day or 90 per week. MEHKO operators can also be approved to serve as a commissary for up to two food carts, which would expand the amount of meals they can serve per week and also bump their gross annual sales max to $150,000 per year.

Throughout the fall, Wayser and Watters got to work outfitting their home kitchen with espresso machines, additional dining and seating areas, custom ceramics from local artist Amy Louise Johnson and new artwork fit for a modern cafe. They asked a friend to refer them to a “coffee wizard” and teamed up Chad Aaron to create their coffee menu; they also tapped local baker Sasha Piligian for their pastry selection.

Granada officially opened its doors in January 2026.

Because of the limitations around MEHKO, skyrocketing sales isn’t the goal for Granada. Wayser says they’ll consider shortening their hours or limiting days of service in order to stay in operation for a longer stretch throughout the year.

Other than potentially launching a coffee cart or two to raise their MEHKO sales cap, Wayser says they don’t expect to open a commercial coffee shop. “As soon as you’re in a commercial space and your rent is so high, it’s not about community anymore,” she says. “The reason this works is that you can buy something or not. You can hang out in the yard as long as you want. We will be paying our mortgage no matter what.”

Wayser says Granada’s visibility could bring new business opportunities, like courting clients to host private events, concerts and art shows from their home.

She also hopes the coffee shop’s success inspires other people to strike out on their own. There are currently about 265 MEHKO-permitted operations throughout LA County.

Wayser says that while the program wasn’t necessarily designed to encourage new parents, specifically new moms, to start a business, it’s had that effect on her. “There aren’t very many things where you’re able to start a new business in such short time period” or around a condensed schedule, like the typical school day, she says.

“I can imagine there are a lot of really qualified people that feel unqualified, and it’s cool that this lets you just try something [and] see how it works,” she says, adding that the stakes are lower without having to rent out commercial space.

She’s already heard from one inspired friend.

“Our neighbor just today said that maybe he’ll apply for MEHKO and start making sandwiches and serve [them] out his window, which would be really fun,” Wayser says. “This would become MEHKO Alley.”

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