We’re Rusty and Jade Valore, the husband and wife team behind Rad Coffee and proud parents of three daughters. We met working at Starbucks in our early twenties and fell in love over coffee. In 2014, expecting our first daughter, we started dreaming about a business that would let us spend more time together, raise our family and build something that felt completely our own.
That idea became Rad Coffee.
When we opened in 2015, themed coffee shops and colorful, camera ready drinks weren’t a thing yet. Specialty coffee was serious and rule heavy. Cortados, perfect ratios and a whole lot of pretension. We loved good coffee. We just never believed it had to follow all of that. We wanted it loud, colorful, fun and completely unexpected.
Before cold foam was on every menu in America, we were whipping cream in bright colors. Before themed menus were everywhere, we were building horror drinks topped with cereal, cookies, candy and whatever else made someone say what is that. We put stickers on plain cups because the minimum order for custom printed ones was way out of our reach. The drinks, the recipes, the names, the artwork, the interiors, the whole experience: all of it came from the two of us.
Since then we’ve collaborated with brands we grew up on, poured Rad at festivals, and watched ideas we put on a chalkboard in Upland turn up on menus everywhere. The door is open now for coffee to be weirder, brighter and a lot more fun. We’re glad. We just got there early.
“As coffee grows up, it gets comfortable enough to be playful.”
“Being motivated is priceless.”
“Rad Coffee was the jolt
downtown Upland needed.”
Independently owned since 2015. No franchisees, no outside investors.
We started small, pouring free cold brew at skate events and building our first pop-up with a gifted espresso machine, a lot of hard work and a clear vision.
Rusty’s love of skate culture inspired the name. Jade’s background in film, talent for marketing and obsession with horror shaped the skulls, the monsters and the unapologetically different personality of the brand.
Jade dreams up how a drink should look and what it should be called. Rusty takes it from there and develops the recipe. From the beginning we wanted Rad to be more than a cup of coffee. We wanted every visit to feel like an experience.
Since the first shop opened in 2015, Rad has grown beyond anything we imagined, but behind it it’s still just the two of us. Every part of it has been built with our own ideas, our own risks and our own hands.
Getting to work with each other. Everyone warns you that going into business with your spouse is hard, but honestly, being best friends is the easy part. We bring different strengths, challenge each other and get to experience every wild milestone side by side.
A nonprofit we’re forming in Orange County, out by the beach.
Cities already offer surf and skate programs, sports, art classes, volunteering, youth councils and first job resources. That information is just scattered across hard to find websites, PDFs and registration systems. Rad Youth brings those opportunities together in free, easy to use city guides.
As the foundation grows we also want to help cover the fees and equipment that keep a young person from participating, from a surfboard or wetsuit to a helmet, a class fee or a sports registration.
Coffee gave us a way to build a life together. Rad Youth is our way of helping the next generation find their thing, build confidence and discover what they’re capable of.
More info coming soon. We’ll share the first city guides, how to get involved and how to help as soon as they’re ready.
Less scrolling. More surfing, skating, making, volunteering and figuring out what makes you feel alive. Young people don’t need another adult telling them to put down their phones. They need something worth putting them down for.
Parents to three amazing daughters, partners in life, partners in business and still the two people behind Rad. And we’re just getting started.