Rainbow Latte at S3 Coffee Bar

I read over on my friend CC’s blog that there’s a coffee shop in town called S3 Coffee Bar and they have a pretty good tasting Rainbow Latte. Because I’m a sucker for pretty things, I went over the weekend to check it out with Jake in tow.

S3 Coffee Bar in located in Mission Gorge, in the same plaza as Souplantation and Donut Panic (who makes awesome vegan donuts).

S3 Coffee Bar has some tasty sounding summer drinks, but I was here to just try the coffee.

This is the “Classic Brew” menu. There’s a cold menu to the right that you can’t see and I didn’t photograph. 

There were a few baked goods on the counter as well as this little menu with other small food offerings. I also discovered that I had a coupon for S3 Coffee Bar on my Entertainment.com app. I used the BOGO (up to $5) coupon on my visit. They told me I was the first one to use it, so it took them a few minutes to figure out how to apply it. I got Jake’s White Mocha for free.

I noticed they had these cute kitty bottles filled with homemade sugar syrup along with a sugar free version.

My Nutella Toast [$2.75] came out first. The nutella is spread on top of some toasted sourdough bread and a sprinkling of almonds. The toast was a little under toasted in my opinion. The bread was still a little soft and not as crunchy as I would have liked it to be. The bread is pretty important when it comes to toast like this, so a longer toast would have improved the overall flavor and texture. It was fine, just not as amazing as I was hoping it would be. 

I didn’t photograph Jake’s drink, the White Mocha. Jake let me try it though and I really enjoyed it. Usually that’s what he gets at Starbucks and I usually never like it because I think it is way too sweet. But the version at S3 Coffee Bar was much better. The flavor of the coffee was smooth, no bitterness detected, and it had just enough sweetness to make the flavor play off of your tastebuds. Jake felt it tasted less “chemically” than the one he gets at Starbucks and he, my non-coffee lover, enjoyed his drink! 

I didn’t have to wait long for my Rainbow Latte [$5] to arrive. I loved how colorful it looked and the little extra sprinkles on the side! It had kind of an overall golden hue, which I thought contrasted nicely with the pink and blues (and touch of purple and green). The rainbow latte is made with a mixture of hazelnut and vanilla and delivers a nice smooth flavor. It’s quite creamy tasting and there was no bitterness, making me quite enjoy the drink. Plus it’s just SO PRETTY! I really appreciated that this didn’t taste overly sweet. I tend to associate bright colorful drinks being over the top sweet, so this was a pleasant surprise (though, not really a surprise since CC tried it first! Read her review about the Rainbow Latte here!).

I noticed that at the counter there was a small cup full of mustache and lip stickers you could apply to your cup. I tried to place the sticker in front of Maya to get a “lips shot”…

And instead she tried to eat the sticker… oh well. I tried. 

Me, enjoying the coffee with my newly applied lips sticker. 

The half full coffee cup, now full of muddled rainbow colors. 

I’ll have to try some of their other drinks in the future. I noticed they have cold brew on tap (and on nitro) so I think that will be in my future. 

S3 Coffee Bar 
6171 Mission Gorge Rd #102
San Diego, CA 92120