We were actually planning to go to Steel Mill tomorrow, but changed our minds...
Steel Mill Coffee opened earlier this week and is a coffee shop that also sells records. It is named after an UK band from the early 70's (not to be confused with Bruce Springsteen's Steel Mill band/more info here). You learn something new every day! But asides from the name, the shop is co-owned by Riley Hawk, the son of skateboarding legend Tony Hawk. This fact alone impressed TC who knows these things. I mean, I know who Tony Hawk is but didn't know of his son Riley, who has a different skating style than his dad (street versus vert). In fact, Riley Hawk was the one who took my order and whom I conversed briefly with about their Randy Rhoads Tribute album on display (in the photo below, Riley is the one in the red plaid shirt). I didn't know it was him until afterwards when TC was freaking out about this, lamenting, "Why are my parents cooler than me?!" (seriously, we're not; we had no idea).
The coffee shop is a few steps away from Panels Coffee Bar and Comics (which we would later go to). Lots of folks in that morning...
Simple menu. Yes. They also use beans from James Coffee. One of their co-owners, Chris Balingit was a former roaster from James. Dude must be Filipino (or at least half) with that last name. The other owner is fellow skater Shea Cooper.
YES!
and YES TO THIS TOO, The Ozzy Osbourne Tribute album to Randy Rhoads. This is a fucking awesome album! I had it on cassette (long gone, sadly), but thanks to YouTube, can listed to it whenever I want. For those of you that don't know, Ozzy's music provided the soundtrack of my early teen years, with his early albums, "Blizzard of Ozz" and "Diary of a Madman" featuring the virtuosic neo-classical/metal stylings of his guitarist, Randy Rhoads, an American guitarist trained in classical music. He was killed in a tragic plane crash in 1982 when he was just 25 years old. I remember reading about this in the news and even clipped the article (this too is long lost).
He was replaced briefly by Brad Gillis (then, the guitarist of Night Ranger) who had to learn all of Randy's guitar parts while Blizzard of Ozz was still on tour. Tough shoes to fill. Randy Rhoads remains one of my favorite guitarists of all time. His innovative playing style as well as his beautiful guitar solos ("Dee" and "Goodbye to Romance") gave Ozzy's albums another dimension. For those who just consider Ozzy Osbourne to be an incomprehensible drug addled buffoon, thanks to his early aught's reality show, "The Osbournes", he once fronted Black Sabbath before going solo in the early 80's. He had a badass image back then.
Randy's polka dot flying V is iconic. I have a t-shirt with the Tribute album cover image. Should've worn it but we weren't planning to come here today.
Records sold to suckers in the back. I say that only because records nowadays cost $20 and more, Fuck! Really? I remember in my college year (1987-1990), you couldn't even give your records away. CD's were taking over back then and records were no longer valued. Now, vinyl lp's are makig a comeback and the youth are rediscovering them. I still have most of my LP's and don't really care to buy any more at these ridiculous prices, unless of course I see it for super cheap at a thrift store.
See the Devo "Freedom of Choice" album? I had it on cassette, ha ha. It's the album with "Whip It" one of their most popular songs. It was one of my favorite albums - cuts that I liked were "Snowball", "That's Pep", the title track of course, "Gates of Steel" and "Mr. B's Ballroom". The lead singer and songwriter of Devo, Mark Mothersbaugh, ended up being the composer for the TV show, "Pee Wee's Playhouse" and the cartoon "Rugrats" (among other things of course).
Macchiato (in a REAL CUP thank you very much):
and my cortado, which isn't on the menu, but Riley Hawk said they'd make it for me (thank you Riley Hawk, ha ha). I like keeping it simple when we first visit new coffee shops. If a coffee place can't make a decent macchiato, then turn around and walk away.
That being said, both drinks were pretty damn good. I do like the beans from James. The vibe here was chill. Lots of biker and skater types here. There is a framed Judas Priest t-shirt on a wall, along with personal black and white photos of a fellow skater friends who passed away. Their logo is a standing goat.
Steel Mill is next to Meric Spearfishing & Freediving store (that's their mannequin). I looked on googlemaps and saw that Steel Mill used to be Whitlock Surf Co., a surf shop. Them google folks need to drive by and update their map, ha ha.
Articles:
"Pro skateboarder opening coffee bar and record shop in Oceanside" SD Eater, Jan. 30, 2019
"Tony Hawk's son opens record store cafe" NBC San Diego, Feb 9, 2019
More info about Riley Hawk:
"Ride Along - Riley Hawk on growing up with the coolest dad on earth" Sports Vice, Dec. 8, 2015
"Riley Hawk - pro skater, renegade rider, shep dawg for life" Rolling Stone, July 16, 2015
Steel Mill Coffee
605 Mission Ave
Oceanside, CA 92054
There is no website but here are the sparse 4 reviews from you know here.
Since we were up here, we may as well make this a coffee crawl. Literally a few steps away was our next stop, which we've been to before, Panels. That is next...
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