Near the spanking new Salesforce skyscraper which towers over San Francisco, I found myself desperately seeking a way to access the building in order to reach my seventh floor destination.

Spotting a security guard, I asked him how to get up to the seventh floor. "You're going to Andytown, right?" he asked. "All my life," I replied and thanked him as he gave me directions to a San Francisco institution - Andytown Coffee Roasters. 

The brainchild of husband-and-wife team, West Belfast expat Mickey McCrory and San Diego-native Lauren Crabb, Andytown Coffee Roasters is taking the Golden Gate City by storm - its rise affirmed with the opening of its first downtown location. 

FÁiLTE: Sign outside the Salesforce Transit Hub location of Andytown Coffee Roasters
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FÁiLTE: Sign outside the Salesforce Transit Hub location of Andytown Coffee Roasters

Michael, best-known in the West as Mickey Magill, left a troubled Belfast in 1997 "to see and meet different types of people". He was to spend his first eight years in New York, where he took some of his home city's woes with him, partying hard until he entered rehab for five months. 

"After that I wanted to head west and let the baggage of my past go," he said. 

The former St Mary's Christian Brothers' grammar school pupil washed up in San Diego where he worked in cafés for minimum wage and "focused on my sobriety". It was in the Southern California city that he met up with his future wife Lauren. After three years in San Diego, he felt "the avocado was turning into guacamole" and the couple decided to move up to San Francisco. It was there that they conceived of a new business that would provide "really great speciality coffee and baked goods without the pretentiousness of speciality coffee and baked goods".

"We wanted to open our own place with zero snobbery which would be a cozy as your granny's kitchen," explains Michael. In 2014, they added their own chapter to the storied history of San Francisco coffee houses when they opened Andytown Coffee Roasters — and received a rapturous welcome from coffee aficionados in the strongly Irish Sunset neighbourhood. "From the first day, it was super successful," says Michael. 

TOP OF THE WORLD, MA: Michael in the rooftop park area outside his downtown outlet
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TOP OF THE WORLD, MA: Michael in the rooftop park area outside his downtown outlet

Now with 55 staff, four locations  — as well as a roasters — across San Francisco and negotiations ongoing about two new sites, Michael and Lauren are balancing a life of entrepreneurship with caring for their two children Oisín (7) and Sadie (3). But for them this is about much more than simply building a business or a brand. "We want to make others successful as well. We want to treat our staff well and ensure that kindness to others is at the core of our approach. When a coffee grower we have introduced to the Bay Area is successful enough to get other accounts, that's a win for us. For us, it's all about lifting people up. Often, the first engagement a person has in the morning is with Andytown Coffee Roasters. So if we can serve them in a way which sets them up for the day, then that's a plus for us."

RESCUED FOR POSTERITY: The 'A' sign from the old Andytown Leisure Centre was destined for the skip heap when Michael came calling
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RESCUED FOR POSTERITY: The 'A' sign from the old Andytown Leisure Centre was destined for the skip heap when Michael came calling

Quietly proud of his roots and his community — his family at home suffered imprisionment and torture at the hands of the state — Michael was always going to call his new business after his home patch, Andytown. But just as one coffee shop didn't sate his ambition, just copying the 'A' symbol for his business branding from the old Andersonstown Leisure Centre 'A' sign was never going to be enough for Michael. 

During demolition of the Andersonstown leisure centre, his mum was dispatched to the building site to save the sign from the scrap heap. Cut up for easy shipping and dispatched west, the sign now rests in storage ready for rehanging - ensuing that at least one small corner of San Francisco will be forever Andytown.