Hardcore Espresso, a Sebastopol original, is up for sale

Opened in 1995, it's been a south Sebastopol gathering spot for 30 years

Hardcore Espresso owner Molly Sunde (Photos by Laura Hagar Rush)

It’s difficult to explain the ramshackle charm of Hardcore Espresso, the sprawling coffee wonderland at Bloomfield Road, just south of Sebastopol. For 30 years, it’s been a gathering place coffee fans in Sebastopol, parents dropping their kids off at Hillcrest, firemen from Goldridge and a whole host of other passersby.

And now it’s up for sale.

Owner Molly Sunde was selling dark, rich, organic coffee in Redmond, Washington when there were only two Starbucks in the world. In 1995, a friend’s brother, who lived in Occidental, suggested she and her business partner bring their coffee magic down to Sonoma County. They landed on the corner of Highway 116 and Bloomfield, across the street from their current location, in a building so rickety I worried for years that it was simply going to collapse on the baristas there. Sunde and friends built a small coffee stall into the front of the building.

“It was in an old fruit stand, Frank’s Fruit Stand,” Sunde said. “I loved it.”

But eventually, time and gravity took its toll, and Sunde moved across the street to another less ramshackle barn, which they renovated into the eclectic space it is today. Inside, tables are decorated with the faces of thousands of customers from over the years, and outside is a sprawling hippie paradise of Amiot metalwork, cute cabanas with colorful tables, mismatched chairs and potted plants galore. There’s even a play area for kids. She’s basically taken a parking lot and turned it into a park.

“I used the sing the old Joni Mitchell song, ‘They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.’ Well, I did the opposite,” Sunde said. “Honestly, I can tell you where almost every plant came from, because it’s all been customers.”

“I’m eclectic, as you can tell. My yard looks just like this,” she said.

When I tell her “It’s such a community space that you built,” she corrects me.

“It’s such a community space that they built—they built it. The ginger plants came from Dave and Donnie. You know, the bamboo came out from Wally. There's that bench over there is Wally. You know, everything has a story,” she said.

Her friend Ron built most of the outdoor structures. When Miguel Elliot built a pizza oven out of cob on the property, it needed a structure to protect it from the weather, and Ron built that too.

When I asked Sunde what it was like running a coffee shop all these years, she smiled.

“It’s the most fun. I’ve been a waitress all my life and a cook,” she said. “But I really focus on my coffee, because I’m a coffee shop.”

Hardcore has always had a limited selection of food, just pastries and little burritos. “Everything that we sell here as food product is made here in Sebastopol,” she said, except Village Bakery products (it used to be located in Sebastopol). But for Sunde, Hardcore Espresso is, like the name suggests, all about the coffee.

“In Europe, you go to the coffee shop for coffee. You go to the pastry shop for pastries. Anybody's welcome to bring their lunch here, wherever they get it, but buy your drinks here. I think it’s strange with America how we have to carry everything. That’s not what I do, but I'm going to serve you the best coffee ever. And I think I do.”

Sunde has clearly thrown her heart and her life into this place. When I asked if she had any hobbies, she said, “This place is my hobby.”

And then she changed her mind. Turns out, for a while, she collected Volkswagens, eventually ending up with ten of them. She’s used Volkswagens almost as a form of currency over the years. When she needed to buy out her business partner, she did it by selling a Volkswagen.

“And then I sold all my Volkswagens to build this,” she said with a wave of her hand, “and so they're painted on the barn doors.”

Sunde ran Hardcore Espresso for years, then her son Jed took over the daily management.

“Then he had a daughter, Jocelyn, who runs it now,” Sunde said, “but she’d like to do different things, and like I told her, I said ‘You know this was’—she calls me Haha— ‘this is your Haha’s dream not yours. Now you go find out what makes your heart sing.”

Sunde has mostly moved back to Washington State, where her husband and the rest of her family still live. “I’ve been commuting back and forth for 30 years,” she said.

“It’s been a great ride. You know, we’ve been really fortunate, and now it’s time for another young person to be fortunate as well.”

Fans of Hardcore Espresso are invited to their annual party on Saturday, June 28, 6 to 9 pm. There’ll be food, music from the Blues Burners Band, a drum circle and fire dancers.

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