As spring unfurls in San Diego, the sun slants through Dot Cafe’s windows, casting soft rays on leafy house plants. On Saturdays, priests, marathon-runners, men in ties and dog walkers stand in the same line besides fanned leaves. Outside, children play hide-and-seek and act as make-believe lions as neighbors catch up in line for coffee.

The coffee shop offers both indoor and outdoor seating. Beneath lush trees outside are several tables, lounge chairs and a red “take a book, leave a book” Little Free Library. Inside, the cafe looks like most other coffee shops with sofas, tables and leafy plants. But on second glance, the planks on the wall beside the cashier are from salvaged fruit boxes and the indoor plants — leafless branches and open-palmed, Ficus elastica — are decorated throughout the cafe in partnership with Terra Bella Nursery.

“For me, it was important to support the local farmers, Californian farmers, as much as possible and [include] plants here,” founder Mazi Irani said. “I believe that food is an act of agriculture, and it’s our one responsibility we can control, to protect and preserve our planet.”

Last semester, Annie Feng (11) visited the cafe in between back to back ballet practices. Her dance studio sits above the cafe, so around midday, especially when she had less time for lunch, she “would just go down in the cafe fast and go back to [her] studio for rehearsal.”

“At that point, because I was going weekly, the baristas did remember me,” Feng said. “They knew my face.”

Feng’s drink of choice is between mocha or a seasonal drink. This April, Dot Cafe released a new three-drink menu: Carrot Cake Latte, Mango Foam Matcha Latte and Mango Latte. The cafe’s philosophy that “food is an act of agriculture” is echoed through their seasonal, farm-to-table menu. 

Outside of their drinks menu, the cafe offers a selection of baked goods: zucchini bread, charcoal chocolate chip bread, muffins and croissants. By far, Dot Cafe regular Baylin Tsai’s (11) favorite is the zucchini bread.

“The zucchini bread [is] just so buttery, good and delicious, and it makes me super duper happy,” Tsai said. “I recommend it 100%. It was definitely life-changing.”

The cafe’s menu is built around children and families. Even the architecture is designed with children in mind. 

“I really love the ambiance there,” Tsai said. “The aesthetic is just so welcoming and  warm … Everything’s just visually pleasing.”

Tsai especially likes the plants in and outside of the cafe because “it feels homey.”

“I knew I wanted a space that’s really warm and inviting for everyone in the community and children,” Irani said. “I find you go to places and it’s not really thought out. You know, kids’ [legs] are always dangling. … Other adults get agitated if kids are running around, making a mess, making a mark … So Dot Cafe’s concept really was created by our work with children. You know, children like food that’s simple, honest and beautifully presented, and so our menu had to be also a menu that children and family come to enjoy.”

Still, she wants an environment “that’s inviting and warm for everyone, all age groups.” An elderly lady visits the cafe every morning, waiting for the shop to open. 

“She’s like, ‘Mazi, Do you think I can’t make my own coffee?’” Irani said. “‘I come here because I want to be here.’ This is an extension of her home, and [it is] similar with little ones.”

But the cafe is “children oriented” beyond interior design, according to barista and cashier Alexas Guss (10).

“That’s why a lot of families are deeply involved,” Guss said. “For the community, we have the cooking classes … connected to Dot to Dot preschool, and they do lessons with the chef [to learn] food skills, and then we have parties for the little kids, but adults can do it too. They are cooking events in [the neighboring] room and I think that brings a lot of community.”

That was Dot Cafe’s philosophy since the beginning, when it opened as an extension of the Dot to Dot preschools.

In 2015, Irani — after giving birth to her first daughter — was inspired to open a preschool: Dot to Dot Rancho Bernardo. She focused on process-based thinking and relationships in early childhood. Through the years, she watched children eat “junk lunch.”

“Parents are very busy,” Irani said. “I never judge them, but, you know, I was getting … chicken nuggets and I was getting Oreos and just food that’s not nutritional … I would see their energy just plummet in the afternoon, and so that’s kind of where the concept of food came up.” 

Come 2019, the preschool began to focus on nutrition. 

“I said, ‘Okay, well, if I can feed them, what if I gave them morning lunch and afternoon snack?’” Irani said. “We didn’t have a kitchen facility yet. So that’s kind of how it came under my radar.”

Then, in 2021, they launched a food program in Carmel Valley Dot to Dot Preschool.

“We work with the children to do food education … in this space,” Irani said. “We actually have a chef that works with the children once a week. [The kids] cut, chop, blend [food]. They mess about with food, and then that kind of got us to be interested in this space, [the cafe], because … I could open this up to be a community hub because relationships and food, for me, is really, really important. It’s kind of what brings everyone together.”