The Coffee House
Photo credit: Michael MarreroWritten by Nicole Bianchi
Photographed by Chloee Blair
May 23, 2026
The first time I walked into Coffee House Realty Café, I felt like I was in a SoHo café in downtown New York City with a mix of Key West. That downtown NYC hip feel and down south Keys beach vibe mesh together magically in uptown Saint Augustine. The owners Diane and Theo have created a beautiful cafe and artiste hangout where you will want to kick off your sandals and put your feet up outside on the beautiful veranda (guilty).
My first question was - where are the bagels from? Diane said New York. And so I asked, where in New York?
“Da Bronx,” as Diane says it. What are the odds we’re from the same place? Since then, I go in every week and have my Café Mocha, and every once in a while, I grab a bagel from Da Bronx. I'm always a little too late to grab my favorite - Diane's homemade almond croissant - as they're gone by the time I get there.
Diana and Theo have become good friends. I bring my friends to Coffee House and every now and then help out on busy holidays and parades down San Marco Avenue.
Not only are they warm, friendly and kind proprietors of Coffee House, they also are profound artists. From local note cards that portray Diane’s drawings, to quirky gifts to paintings on wood to Theo’s custom-made tables - one of a kind artistry and carpentry that make it feel like home when you plop yourself down in a comfy chair inside or relax on the covered porch by the garden.
My personal favorite is Theo's painting of a lighthouse on wood that stands about six feet tall. I don't know how they can part with these visions of beauty. I could never if I created something so beautiful.
Diane and Theo’s journey to St. Augustine started in Holland. Theo is from a small village called Limmen and, as a young man in the late 1980s, he came to America and planned to stay for only a few months.
That changed one day when he was selling tulips in Laguna Beach, California and met a fiery, pretty young Italian girl who worked behind a flower stand. Theo said he knew at first sight he was going to marry this woman.
He asked Diane if she wanted to buy his tulips. Although she refused to buy the $6 bouquet at first, he persisted, relenting to her $5 offer. The couple says Theo pursued Diane for months until she finally said yes. On that first date, Theo was joined by Diane - and six of her girlfriends.
When Theo was pursuing Diane she said to him: “You don’t know this yet, but you’re gay.” To which Theo said: “I’m not gay, I’m Dutch,” crossing his legs and taking a stoic puff of his cigarette. More than 36 years later, Diane says what’s most attractive to her about Theo is his sense of humor.
They started a flower shop in Laguna Beach and, after a few short years, packed up and started to travel. Driving down the Keys and traversing the Upper Sugarloaf Key, around mile marker #21, they came upon Islamorada.
One morning, while Theo was grabbing a cup of coffee, he sees a guy pull up on a Harley, walk into the coffee shop, open the cash register, pull out a wad of bills, stuff the cash into his pocket, hop back on his motorcycle and ride away.
Right then and there, sipping his coffee in the Keys in Islamorada and seeing the coffee shop owner on his Harley ride away with the ocean breeze at his back with that stack of bills stuffed in his pocket, Theo said to himself “that’s what I want to do when I grow up.”
Diane told him to him unpack his bags and they opened a coffee shop in the Keys.
They knew nothing about the coffee business.
“Don’t be afraid to start your own company,” Theo says, passionately. “Dream, ease up a little bit…grow slowly…listen to your customers.”
Diane and Theo started with very little and built their dream coffee house. Buying leftover paint at Home Depot for $5 a bucket, Theo would mix the dark green and yellow colors together until he created their own unique blend of color for their coffee café in the Keys. They learned through observation of others how to make a cappuccino and other coffee specialties. But the baking - that’s Diane’s specialty of the house wrapped up with a heap of love.
In the Keys, as elsewhere, catastrophe came. COVID-19 hit and the Keys shut down. Literally. The islands were closed to visitors. It killed their business.
When Theo and Diane laid eyes on this Victorian house, built in 1910, on San Marco, they dug in and planted new roots. Through massive renovation and resounding love, they rejuvenated this Victorian treasure that has become home.
And you feel like you are entering someone’s home when you walk through the garden into The Coffee House. You will see throughout the café an assortment of art, with a provocative and playful photo of Diane and Theo embossed on mugs and candies, taken by photographer Michael Marrero. The photo was included in an art show and the original sold. It’s a thread in the weave of their lives they display in the café that captures their love, laughter and liveliness, and that Dutchman’s sense of humor.
The Coffee House does have one rule - no laptops. The couple says they’ve received bad reviews because of it, but they explain that the shop is about relaxing, talking with friends, playing games, reading a book, enjoying the garden.
So come and stay as long as you like, savor Diane’s coconut tres leches or cinnamon apple walnut coffee cake with their house brew, an organic Guatemalan Sumatra blend, play a game of chess on a wooden chess table, or lounge out on the porch with your fur baby.
As Diane says it best, when you come to Coffee House - “Make a friend, bring a friend, meet a friend.”
You can find Coffee House in the big blue Victorian at 47 San Marco Ave.
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