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On a recent drizzly morning, Couplet Coffee owner Gefen Skolnick stepped into her rainbow-hued cafe at the edge of Echo Park and Westlake, stopping by tables to greet visitors who were sipping on drinks like bananas-and-cream matcha. Some of them had discovered the shop through social media posts, while others were passersby drawn in by the psychedelic colors. Most happened to be Gen Z, Couplet’s target customer base.
Before Couplet opened its flagship shop in January, the coffee bean brand had already cultivated a devout following that leaned into aesthetics, limited-edition product drops, community-building, storytelling and social media. Even the packaging — an eye-catching holographic bag emblazoned with cheery drawings and Skolnick’s couplet poems — stood out on the shelves of Erewhon and Mother’s Market.
And then last year during a six-month contract, Couplet’s beans caffeinated thousands of Snap employees at the tech company’s headquarters in Santa Monica. Skolnick had built such a name for herself as a Gen Z whisperer that other brands approached her, asking how to connect with younger audiences.
Couplet was just a seed of an idea that popped into Skolnick’s mind five years ago when the Los Angeles native was a UCLA undergrad studying computer science. At the time, Skolnick — who describes herself on her website as a “proud queer woman and coffee lover” — felt the coffee market was pretentious and stale, and wanted a “fun and funky” space where she and her friends felt like they belonged.
“The whole concept of Couplet was that there needs to be great coffee made more approachable to people,” said Skolnick, 28.
As behemoth corporations like Starbucks are laying off employees to streamline operations, newer and smaller companies like Couplet may be ushering in the next wave of coffee drinkers who are looking for much more than just caffeine.
Hype culture
“The hype and branding was built in before the coffee,” said Skolnick, who took an unconventional approach of selling Couplet merchandise long before she even had beans available.
Skolnick, a rising social-media star who worked in product management at Hulu and Tesla by the age of 23, built a supportive circle for herself on X, formerly Twitter, by tweeting about tech and venture capital investing. In 2020 when she began posting about a new coffee idea as a side project, Jen Rubio, the co-founder and CEO of Away luggage (who would later become Couplet’s first investor), quickly took notice and encouraged Skolnick to do Couplet full time.
Rubio said Skolnick was quite knowledgeable about start-up companies and fundraising.
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“I had assumed she was already a full-time founder, and as I got to know her more, I realized she wasn’t and that was crazy to me,” Rubio said. “Here’s someone with so much, not just passion or interest, but also a lot of knowledge and how this world works.”
It lit a fire under Skolnick.
To determine whether the brand could become a viable business, Skolnick tried to hype Couplet to the masses. In 2021, she partnered with artist Ludi Leiva to create her first product release: a drinking glass adorned with the Couplet logo and cutesy mushrooms and clouds artwork. It went viral on TikTok, selling hundreds within two days.
Every other month, Couplet launched a new viral product. There was the collaboration with the environmentally conscious Kawa Project selling vanilla latte candles made with upcycled coffee grounds. Skolnick then developed the extremely viral cow-printed Mooka Pot and red-hearted French press.
“My sauce is I like to creatively do something and put it out really fast,” said Skolnick. “Gen Z likes limited-edition drops and things that look and taste good.”
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Some projects took a bit longer, though, like the seven months Skolnick spent getting all the details right with Couplet’s iconic opalescent coffee bag that was designed by Javier Garcia. Skolnick encouraged Garcia to keep experimenting with textured materials and find a way to have the consumer experience a journey through artwork and words on the packaging. This included adding Skolnick’s couplets, like one that reads, “Tangy, funky, and bright, Couplet’s Peruvian feels like a beam of light.”
It wasn’t until 2022 that Couplet sold actual coffee on its website.
Skolnick found her coffee bean supplier through her X network — a Nicaraguan farmer with “deep connections,” she says. He linked her with other co-op and family-run farms, resulting in Couplet’s offerings, which ranged from light single-origin Peruvian beans to a rich and sweet espresso blend of Brazilian, Nicaraguan and Peruvian coffee.
In January, Skolnick added a matcha from the coastal city of Ise in Japan to her Couplet portfolio, using it in her bricks-and-mortar shop and also selling it wholesale to other L.A. businesses like Café Tropical and Lemon Poppy Kitchen.
The allure of a vibrant cafe
While there are other cafes that also attract a Gen Z audience (like Century City’s Chamberlain Coffee and Beverly Grove’s Community Goods, both of which draw long lines), Skolnick sees Couplet as a singular brand that has carved its own niche market.
At Couplet, the walls are lacquered in shades of pastel pink and sky blue, juxtaposing the black-and-white checkered floor. Paintings of swans, mushrooms and the sun cover the bar, emulating the look and feel of Couplet’s merchandise. In one corner, a dozen New Yorker magazines are fanned across a transparent acrylic table. The shelf attached to a fun-house mirror displays a Lana Del Rey CD and cassette tape, while other ledges are stocked with packaged goods from popular brands like Fly By Jing and Ghost Town Oats, giving the small space superette vibes. A glass case holds grab-and-go items from former All Day Baby pastry chef Sam Robinson, like an Instagram-worthy sunny-side-up egg bacon galette, and Gooey Center Bakery’s vegan cinnamon rolls.
Customers have taken notice. Emily Anne Fernandez, 29, a manager at the Arts District’s Concierge Coffee who buys Couplet’s matcha wholesale for her shop, spent her free time in Couplet’s patio producing music on her laptop.
“Personally, I noticed that a lot of shops are just white, so it’s nice to have a change in color,” Fernandez said. “I like the floor and tiles.”
Beyond design, Skolnick wanted to bridge the gap between specialty coffee heads and folks who want fun beverages. In addition to well-crafted lattes and espressos, the signature drinks — created by Skolnick and her staff — are whimsical, with options like a rosemary-and-passionfruit espresso tonic, and matcha punctuated with rose, cardamom and saffron.
When Skolnick was building out the cafe, she went to TikTok and Instagram (which has about 28,000 followers combined) to document her process, asking followers for their input on what they wanted in a coffee shop. It resonated with her fan base, with folks now traveling long distances from the Westside and South Bay to the cafe on the weekends. Within the first month and a half of business, Couplet sold 10,000 cups.
Zoe Price, 20, who was back home in L.A. while on college spring break, visited Couplet with her mother for the first time. She had been a longtime follower of Couplet on TikTok and was excited to finally experience it in person.
“The online presence was so welcoming and inclusive, and seeing Couplet’s passion from the beans to opening the store, and seeing the vision come to life was really special and rewarding,” Price said.
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Building community
Skolnick believes Gen Z is invested in brand ownership. “The main thing people care about is, Can I connect with this brand?” said Skolnick. “And then they start digging, asking, ‘Who’s running it? What’s the vibe that I get from them? Do I feel like I’m connected with their vision and mission?’ ”
Before Couplet opened, Skolnick built brand awareness through coffee pop-ups, from Pride to run-club events. She’s made a concerted effort to continue cultivating community through gatherings now held at her own shop, including meetups for Women In Visuals, the Bring Your Own Pen art group and Friend or Flame speed dating.
The collaborations haven’t stopped either. For Valentine’s Day, Couplet teamed up with Kaja Beauty (a Korean makeup brand that resonates with the Gen Z audience) to give out a free Cherry Cola lip oil with each purchase of a cherry vanilla cream top matcha and cold brew drink. Over 800 people lined up for it down the block over the span of a weekend.
“I definitely think it’s the experiential part [that’s important],” said Brittany Wu, 23, senior social media associate of Kaja Beauty’s parent company, Memebox. “With L.A. being such a niche community, a lot of people are looking for things to do on the weekends with their friends. Cafe-hopping culture has increased as well.”
Skolnick knows she has her pulse on the Gen Z market and dreams big.
“I would like to open more coffee shops in L.A. and other places in the country,” she said. “It would be great even internationally.”
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