By Eli Dahmah

Ofelia Ponce and Inti Martínez-Alemán bought an espresso machine and started making their own coffee at home after their favorite coffee shop closed during the coronavirus pandemic.

Ponce and Martínez-Alemán own the law office above Abogados Café and had tenants renting the floor below who outgrew the space, leaving the husband and wife with a unique opportunity.

Ponce and Martínez-Alemán decided to rezone the building and gathered signatures from all of the neighbors in an effort to open something new in the space. The two were surprised to hear that the people in the neighborhood wanted a coffee shop.

Inti and Ofelia took matters into their own hands and decided to grant the neighbors’ wishes by opening Abogados Café, 1053 Dale St. N, Suite 102.

The couple is very thankful for the community welcoming the cafe with open arms.

“It has been a great two years plus in the Como Park neighborhood and also the North End,” Martínez-Alemán said. “The community has been very supportive.”

Now the couple is pilot testing extended café hours into the afternoon, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., to see if there is sufficient demand.

Abogados Café is the only law-themed coffee shop in the country. The lattes, or “lawttes” as the couple calls them, on their menu are named after various legal terms, such as Motion Granted or Ex Parte. Even the name of the cafe is law themed, as abogados means “lawyers” in Spanish. The cafe was once featured in the American Bar Association Journal.

Abogados is also the first Latina owned coffee shop in the Twin Cities. Not only is it Latin owned, it is Latin inspired. Inti and Ofelia designed the interior to feel like a small Latin American town.

Martínez-Alemán became interested in law as a child by going to court cases with his mother, who was a lawyer. He earned his undergraduate degree at Houghton College in New York and returned to Honduras to study law.

Inti and Ofelia met in high school in Honduras while taking French lessons. The two reconnected when Inti was living in the United States and practicing law. They married in 2018.

Ofelia’s childhood dream of opening a coffee shop is alive and well. She is also the reason Inti fell in love with coffee.

“We would rather focus on hospitality rather than just serving,” Martínez-Alemán said. “Anybody can make a cup of coffee, but making you feel like you are having a great coffee experience, that’s what we want to focus on.” 

Eli Dahmah is a journalism student at the University of Minnesota and an intern for the Bugle.