From East Cliff to Eagles: Coffee Conspiracy serves backstage for big-name acts like Billie Eilish, Metallica
by Lily Belli of Lookout Santa Cruz
Images by: Kevin Painchaud/Lookout Santa Cruz & Shawn Hatjes/Coffee Conspiracy
In 2020, Eddie Alaniz started Coffee Conspiracy Co., a coffee shop with creative drinks and iconoclast branding, after he was laid off during the pandemic, using his two government stimulus checks as startup capital. Five years later, he watched superstar Billie Eilish hang out backstage at a Bay Area show with a cup with his logo on it.
Ask how he went from serving coffee, espresso and cold brew at a coffee cart on East Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz to a partnership with Live Nation, the world’s largest entertainment company, serving backstage for performers like Metallica, Justin Timberlake and the Eagles, he’ll tell you it was a mixture of luck, perseverance and divine intervention.
“I really wanted to somehow figure out how to be the coffee purveyor for the rock ‘n’ roll world,” said Alaniz, who said music, particularly rock music, is a huge part of his personality. “I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but that’s what I wanted. And I talked about it every day for months on end to anybody who would listen to me.”
After a circuitous four years of lucky breaks, well-timed phone calls and months of waiting, this year, it became a reality. Coffee Conspiracy served backstage at SAP Center at San Jose for a total of 17 shows for artists ranging from Kendrick Lamar to Metallica and Lady Gaga. Hanging out with the tour crew isn’t just fun; Alaniz said he earned a third of his income at these gigs, which buy out the cart for the day.
The journey got off to a rocky start. In 2021, when Alaniz was still serving coffee from a cart on East Cliff Drive, a regular customer – he calls them “co-conspirators” – pulled on his connections in the music industry to book Coffee Conspiracy to serve backstage for the Lumineers at SAP Center.
“A lot of these big bands that have budgets when they come into town like to do something cool for the artist and the crew, like a food truck or a cool pop-up experience,” Alaniz said. He set up backstage near a huge loading area behind the arena, where workers unloaded around 20 semi-trucks of equipment. “It’s a lot of hustle and bustle, and not as glamorous as you think. It’s mainly a bunch of people working really hard to get the show going,” he said.
The tour manager pre-purchased the coffee, so Alaniz served anyone with a tour badge for free. It’s typical for workers to begin at 5 a.m. and go continuously until soundcheck at 2 or 3 p.m., so many were thankful for a cup of craft coffee to get them through the long day.
Working the show felt like a dream come true, he said. But despite a successful pop-up, the fragile connection between Alaniz and the music industry remained tenuous. He hoped that they would book the coffee cart for more shows, but a year passed before he heard from them again.
In 2022, a manager at SAP Center thought of Alaniz and pulled over his car to call him. He asked if Coffee Conspiracy could come back to serve for the Eagles.
Alaniz and his beloved late uncle shared a deep connection over that band when Alaniz was a teenager. “He was the biggest Eagles fan,” he said of his uncle. “I have a feeling that he helped move some pieces on the chessboard.”
After the Eagles show, he didn’t hear from anyone at SAP for another year. Nevertheless, he was determined to forge a stronger bond between his small craft businesses and some of the world’s biggest music stars. Finally, in 2023, they asked him to come back to serve at a Justin Timberlake concert.
While there, Coffee Conspiracy’s iconoclast branding caught the eye of a manager for Live Nation, widely recognized as the largest entertainment company in the world. “He saw a ‘Fuck Corporate Coffee’ sticker, laughed and immediately slapped it on his water bottle,” said Alaniz of the executive, who asked for his business card. It turned out that his wife is from Santa Cruz. “I can keep you guys really busy,” the exec told Alaniz.
Yet another year went by. In the meantime, Coffee Conspiracy settled into its first brick-and-mortar location on Locust Street in downtown Santa Cruz. In late 2024, that lease ended, and Coffee Conspiracy prepared to move into a larger space in a former Starbucks in the Capitola Mall. A gap in the lease left Alaniz with four months of lost income.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do,” said Alaniz. With few options, he emailed the director of operations for Live Nation to see if he could sell at any upcoming events. After years of having to wait months to hear back about a gig, this time someone emailed him back within 20 minutes, and asked if he could serve at three consecutive shows at Oracle Park in San Francisco for Pink, Imagine Dragons and a triple billing with Green Day, Smashing Pumpkins and Rancid.
“I was like, ‘Wow, this is actually happening. I’m the coffee purveyor for the rock stars,'” he said.
Although Alaniz has built Coffee Conspiracy’s brand around giving corporate coffee the middle finger, he doesn’t believe all corporations are bad, he said. In his experience, the people who work at Live Nation want to be there and love the industry, unlike his behemoth coffee foe. “There’s some humor in it for me. It can be taken generally, but it’s aimed at one company: Starbucks,” said Alaniz.
After that, things ramped up. Live Nation booked Coffee Conspiracy for several more shows through the summer and in the fall 2024 touring season, including heavy metal bands Korn and Gojira. This year, Live Nation booked the coffee cart for 17 shows with some of the biggest artists in the world, including Shakira, My Chemical Romance, The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar and Stray Kids.
Although Coffee Conspiracy doesn’t typically serve the musicians, who have their own space separate from the tour crew, a few have sought out the pop-up after seeing workers with “Fuck Corporate Coffee” stickers on their cups. Kiki Wong, guitar player for the Smashing Pumpkins, posted about Coffee Conspiracy on her Instagram page. Ray Luzier, the drummer for Korn, is a coffee nerd, Alaniz reports. Last December, Conspiracy made matcha drinks for Eilish and her friends. “She was riding around the back of the SAP Arena on a tricycle with a ‘Fuck Corporate Coffee’ cup in her hand,” he said. “I was like, what universe am I in?”
Coordinating the shows was difficult for his then-two-man operation. He and his employee, Shawn Hatjes, had to close the new shop every time they went to a show. But the opportunity has brought in a revenue stream that has allowed Alaniz to expand his business. The shows helped give Coffee Conspiracy financial stability, allowed him to release an expanded line of merchandise, purchase better-quality coffee and hire two more employees.
This year, when the summer tour season ramps up, he won’t have to close the café while he pours at shows. “On their end, they’re just booking a coffee cart. But on my end, they’re changing the course of my business,” he said of his partnership with Live Nation.
Coffee Conspiracy also got on the radar of the general manager of Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, which booked the cart for eight shows this year and plans to have it come back for more in 2026.
Alaniz is still pinching himself, but he’s also looking toward the future. In addition to operating the coffeehouse in Capitola five days a week, he’d like to grow the pop-up side of his business, perhaps getting bags of coffee into the hands of band members, or doing coffee tasting experiences for the artists. He’d also like to explore serving the public at music venues, too.
It’s a testament to the power of reaching for the stars as a small business. “I think people don’t dream big enough, because people get scared,” Alaniz said. “However big people are dreaming, you have to scratch it out and dream even bigger. I’ve learned that anything is possible.”
