There is a version of Burbank that exists entirely inside Romancing the Bean -- screenwriters working on first acts at 8 AM, ADs grabbing doubles before a long day, retired studio executives reading the trades with a cortado. Maria Santos has been providing the setting for this scene since 1993, and the cafe has become one of those places where the community's creative life is quietly conducted.
The coffee is the reason. Santos was sourcing single-origin beans and training her baristas on proper extraction before the third-wave coffee movement had a name for it. The pour-over program rotates through Ethiopian, Guatemalan, and Colombian selections based on seasonal availability. The cortado is the drink that demonstrates whether a cafe takes its espresso seriously. Romancing the Bean does. The lavender latte, made with house-prepared lavender syrup and oat milk, has become the signature order for the afternoon crowd.
The almond croissant -- butter croissant filled with almond cream, baked twice, finished with sliced almonds -- is one of the best in Burbank. The patio, shaded by a large tree and furnished with mismatched chairs that have somehow always worked together, is the outdoor room that the neighborhood gathers in. Romancing the Bean is the coffee shop that Burbank built its creative morning routine around, and it has never let them down.
