When entering three UC Irvine students’ apartment-turned-cafe, the first thing that comes to mind is the calming, impeccably clean environment. The living room features white walls, curtains and freshly cleaned carpet. The decor is minimal, yet intentional.
A framed memorabilia of the cafe’s first menu items — Spanish and brown sugar lattes — is displayed alongside Polaroids of friends. Candles, plants and handmade pottery are perched on surfaces around the room, and a disco ball hangs on the kitchen ceiling.
Tightly packed into the kitchen are an excess of coffee mugs, stacked baked goods and three roommates hurriedly preparing to host an array of guests — this is Casa Café.
Students Ximena Garcia, Jovana Delgado and Majo Cham have been running their pop-up cafe in their apartment since May 2024. On May 31, the three welcomed friends, family and other students to a pop-up event, marking Casa Café one-year anniversary.
The roommates posted fliers around campus and the event attracted more students than they expected. As a result, Casa Café had the biggest turnout it has ever had, according to fourth-year biological sciences student Garcia.
“It’s a fun way to just hang out,” fourth-year marketing student Cham told New University. “Just to gather all of our friends that even if we haven’t seen them in a month or two, I feel like this is a good place for all of us to catch up. And then afterwards everyone just kind of stays and we just linger around and hang out. And then I feel like other people get to meet other friends.”
Casa Café owners Garcia and Cham have lived together since their first year at UCI, while third-year education sciences student Delgado joined three years ago. Opening a cafe was a collective idea, but Garcia was the first to invest in a high-end espresso machine.
“Yeah, it was kind of all of us [love] drinking coffee, you know, going to coffee shops. We love going to coffee shops, especially, like, with college and stuff. We need the caffeine,” Garcia told New University.
At the pop-up, they sold pre-owned clothing and Garcia’s handmade pottery while a friend of theirs performed a DJ set. According to Cham, the roommates have organized a bracelet making workshop and live music performed by a friend.
When asked about why they added the additional features of their cafe, Cham said, “to just do more, more activities, because honestly, our goal is just for a bunch of our friends to have fun, to hang out and, just meet new people. It’s literally, like, the community event, you know?”
The roommates host the cafe pop-ups on a semi-monthly basis, splitting tasks between each other.
“I feel like we all have different things we’re good at and together we obviously it just works so much better,” Garcia said.
Transforming their apartment into a cafe open to strangers is an investment. However, Garcia named the planning and organization process as the hardest part of maintaining Casa Café.
“Carpet cleanings are expensive. You know, stuff like that. And then it’s like, just putting everything that we have away, bringing it back out, you know, and it’s like a lot and since it’s only one day. And then we got to put in everything, [put] everything back,” Garcia said.
Although the events require extensive preparation, Garcia said the work isn’t difficult. The team even enjoys the “last minute rush” when preparing the night before an event.
“I never really thought they were hard.” Garcia said. “We have so much fun with them, even if something goes wrong, we’re like, ‘Oh, it’s okay, like, it’s not that serious,’”
At the event, upcoming UCI graduates grouped together to discuss ceremony outfits and afterparty plans. Upcoming environmental sciences graduate Eunice Avila ordered the matcha mojito during their second time visiting Casa Café. Avila, who is a Starbucks barista, discovered the event through a roommate.
“The atmosphere of it was really cool, I feel like no other place has small business owners, or like a DJ set playing in the background, so I think it’s really cool that they have like a whole vibe going on,” Avila told New University.
Cham spoke on how Casa Café differs from the typical coffee shop experience.
“Yeah, I think it’s the fact that it’s a community event and it’s like a lot of people of similar ages, different activities, you can meet new people, hang out. It’s close to campus. We offer music, pottery, clothes. It’s different every time, you know? So I think it’s, like, and it only happens like once every month, once every couple months, compared to, like, a coffee shop is open every day,” Cham said.
The roommates plan on continuing to host pop-ups in their apartment, despite Garcia and Cham’s pending graduation. They are currently contemplating purchasing a van to sell their cafe items locally.
“Regardless, Casa Café will still still be here,” Delgado told New University.
To keep up to date on Delgado, Cham and Garcia’s pop-up cafe events, visit the Casa Café Instagram page.
Emma Richman is a Features Intern for the spring 2025 quarter. She can be reached at richmane@uci.edu.
Edited by Alyssa Villagonzalo and Joshua Gonzales