AROUND HOME : Graffeo Coffee

GRAFFEO COFFEE HAS been an institution in San Francisco’s North Beach for 40 years, a simple storefront dominated by enormous burlap bags of coffee beans. You can smell the coffee roasting for blocks away, and that scent draws you inexorably to the door where there is always a line of people waiting to buy coffee.

Unlike the coffee in fancier emporiums, Graffeo coffee comes in only three varieties: dark roast, light roast and decaffeinated. All varieties are excellent; Graffeo’s location is not the only reason that North Beach’s famous coffeehouses buy coffee here.

Fans of Graffeo coffee were thrilled when the company decided to open a Southern California outpost, although perhaps a little puzzled when it was announced that the shop was moving into Beverly Hills. In contrast to the San Francisco store, the Beverly Hills Graffeo Coffee Roasting is an incredibly classy place: You buy your coffee across a counter far too elegant for the original store. But there are still stacks of burlap bags of coffee beans waiting to be roasted, and there’s still that unmistakeable Graffeo aroma. Best of all, it’s the same wonderful coffee--the kind that makes people who think they don’t like the stuff ask for a second cup.

Graffeo Coffee Roasting, 315 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills; telephone (213) 273-0817. Roasted coffee is $7.50 a pound, decaffeinated $8.50.