A Barista Turns Tragedy Into A Coffee Shop Where Customers Can Caffeinate And Cry - Beritaja

In an creation assemblage successful Long Beach, a makeshift java shop roars successful the corner. Baristas telephone retired orders complete the hum of chatter. Magnetic mahjong tiles instrumentality to the espresso maker. On the walls bent “Reinne Checks” wherever customers are invited to constitute notes to loved ones who person passed, past selves and moreover exes from years agone — condolences and its galore phantoms.

A joke that the java shop owner, Tommy Le, repeats often: “Coffee baristas are therapists who service group coffee.”

A framed photograph of Lim successful the java shop opened by Le, who wanted to create a therapeutic abstraction for customers.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Le turned his ain individual calamity and community-minded tone into a spot wherever customers could transmission emotion and loss. Occasionally, customers burst into tears. Le — who founded the java shop successful representation of his precocious girlfriend, Reinne Lim, successful 2025 — welcomes it, moreover encourages it.

“At slightest erstwhile a day, personification comes up to maine and starts crying. The truth that 2 strangers astatine 1 point, wrong 30 seconds, could consciousness that protection is beautiful to me.”

When Le first began making love Lim, he noticed she ever gave spare alteration to unhoused group connected the street. Why? Le remembers asking his girlfriend, whom he met while moving arsenic a barista. Raised by Vietnamese migrant parents, Le was taught to beryllium wary of strangers — generosity was ripe for exploitation. Lim dismissed that cynicism. “She didn’t judge group for illustration that,” Le said. She lived openly, warmly, without suspicion.

The mates planned to move to New York City together, each pursuing a imaginative path. Instead, successful October 2022, Lim was killed by a drunk driver who struck their car head-on.

Le survived but was near successful captious condition, undergoing aggregate surgeries and months of intensive beingness therapy. At 22 years old, a assemblage dropout, he recovered himself grieving without a consciousness of direction.

“There was truthful overmuch to process,” he said. “Not only losing a partner, but I deliberation a batch of times, group don’t recognize that I was driving.”

At Reinne’s Place, customers are encouraged to constitute “Reinne Checks,” messages to those they clasp successful memory.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Reinne’s Place proprietor Le holds 1 of his specialty drinks, “Mot, hai, ba … yo!” (the Vietnamese building for “cheers,” aliases “one, two, three, let’s go!”) and shows his tattoos honoring his girlfriend.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

While successful the ICU, Le received “a mates 100 visitors.” Friends, family members, coworkers and moreover java shop regulars from his barista days came to connection support.

Le’s mother was stunned. “Who are each these people?” she asked.

“I was trying to show my accepted Vietnamese mom that this is what I’ve been doing,” Le said. “It whitethorn look for illustration I’m a assemblage dropout moving arsenic a barista — but astatine that moment, it was a testament to each the years I put into being a barista. It was the first clip successful a agelong clip that my mom understood me.”

In the aftermath of the tragedy, astatine property 25, Le created Reinne’s Place to grant the representation of his precocious partner.

Many of Reinne’s Place’s investors and business partners were regulars whom Le served arsenic a barista. “They each saw really severely I wanted it,” Le said. “The beautiful point about this shop is that it’s each backed by group I’ve served complete the years.”

In the summertime of 2025, an opportunity to unfastened Reinne’s Place presented itself. Le secured a lease pinch philanthropist assistance. “Organically, things conscionable started falling successful place,” he explains. “Weirdly, aged customers were reaching backmost retired to me. When I recovered the spot, I was like: You cognize what? I person to do this.”

Customer Julianne Nieh, of Vancouver, holds a Reinne’s Spanner portion pinch matcha and cream.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

An Instagram post that Le made memorializing his woman and introducing Reinne’s Place went viral, prompting an outcry of support connected societal media. Le began receiving hundreds of DMs from group retired of authorities and internationally, offering him encouragement. “I get truthful galore interactions each day, I had to move disconnected the notifications,” he said.

The drinks served astatine Reinne’s Place person a unsocial Asian influence. Le is Vietnamese, and Lim was Filipino. The resulting paper infuses Asian flavors into java drinks. Ingredients see ube, matcha and banana fermented pinch jackfruit. “We person a full plethora of things that we could research wrong my civilization — things I grew up loving, things that Reinne’s parents show maine about,” Le said. “It’s been a batch about honoring Reinne’s culture. ...

“My number 1 extremity was to promote group to effort caller things and consciousness connected to these flavors.”

For Le, the java shop serves arsenic a organization abstraction wherever customers consciousness free to grieve and stock their experiences pinch loss. “When you travel here, I want you to slow down. Take it successful and consciousness what I’m trying to present — a consciousness of connection.”

The convivial ambiance of the java shop could beryllium attributed to Le, who romanticizes his clip arsenic a barista. He’s watched lives unfold from down the bar. “That’s my favourite portion — seeing families turn up, seeing kids and babies turn up. Seeing 2 regulars commencement talking, and past they get married,” said Le. “It’s a really beautiful point erstwhile you commencement appreciating those small subtleties.”

Le says arsenic a barista he has watched lives unfold. “That’s my favourite portion — seeing families turn up, seeing kids and babies turn up. Seeing 2 regulars commencement talking, and past they get married.”

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Le enlists the baristas astatine Reinne’s Place arsenic portion of his broader community-building vision. “Coming complete to someone’s house, an Asian genitor ever takes attraction of you,” Le said, who grew up successful Southern California. He hopes to widen that contented of hospitality to his java shop. “When you make a sojourn to a java shop, it makes aliases breaks your day.”

Le has besides introduced the “Reinne-y Day Fund,” wherever a information of each portion waste is donated to a origin erstwhile a month. It’s what Reinne would person wanted, Le said. “Every azygous nationalist personification she saw, she ever gave them something.”

Reinne’s Place is located astatine Open Gallery, 3902 E. 4th St., Long Beach. A caller imperishable cafe is slated to unfastened successful spring.

The early location of Reinne’s Place successful Long Beach.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)