Café de Olla and House Syrups on 400 East in Moab
Photo: Kathryn Brewer, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Café de olla is not a drink most Moab visitors expect to find on a coffee menu, and that is exactly what makes Más Café worth knowing about. Sweetened with piloncillo and spiced with cinnamon, brewed the traditional Mexican way rather than pulled as a straight espresso shot, café de olla is a genuinely different kind of coffee experience than the drinks most desert town cafes are built around. Más Café, at 344 S 400 E in East Moab, near Mill Creek and the Sand Flats trailhead, has made it a centerpiece.
The Moab Sun News covered the shop's opening in a story published April 18, 2024, under a headline calling 400 East Moab's Main Street for locals. That article is worth reading for anyone curious about the shop, because it places Más Café exactly where it belongs: in the part of town where residents run their errands, not on the strip built for visitors. Local press coverage like that matters for a small business, giving a shop's opening a documented, citable home beyond word of mouth alone.
There is something worth appreciating about a coffee shop that leads with a drink most of its customers have never tried, rather than defaulting to the safest, most familiar espresso menu possible. Café de olla takes real preparation, real ingredients, and a willingness to introduce visitors to something new, and building an entire shop identity around it is a genuinely distinctive choice in a small tourist town where the easy path would be to serve exactly what every other cafe already serves.
Welcomed by the Local Paper in 2024
Más Café arrived on 400 East with a proper introduction. The Moab Sun News story from April 18, 2024 covered the opening in detail, and it gave readers the essentials a new cafe needs to be found: the address, 344 S 400 E, the hours, and the drink that sets the menu apart. For a small independent shop in a town of 5,316 residents, per the 2023 American Community Survey, a feature in the local paper is one of the most valuable forms of recognition there is.
The headline itself did something useful. By calling 400 East Moab's Main Street for locals, the story framed the shop as part of the everyday life of the town rather than part of the visitor economy downtown. That framing still fits the address today, and it is the clearest short description anyone has written of what this stretch of East Moab is for.
A story like that also gives visitors a trustworthy starting point. Someone planning a trip who wants to know where residents actually get their coffee can read a dated local news story rather than guess from a directory, and that story points straight to 344 S 400 E and a cup of café de olla.
Why 400 East
Más Café's home on 400 East puts it in East Moab, near Mill Creek and the road up toward the Sand Flats trailhead, a different part of town from the downtown Main Street strip most visitors picture first. The Moab Sun News piece covering the opening described 400 East as something close to Moab's own Main Street for locals, a framing that fits the shop's actual location well.
The address itself, 344 S 400 E, sits in a sublease next to Rize Training Studio, according to that same coverage. That is a small but real detail worth knowing, since it places Más Café inside an existing East Moab business corridor rather than as a standalone shop out on its own. A customer walking to a workout at Rize now has a café de olla stand right next door.
This kind of placement, sharing a stretch of 400 East with an existing local business rather than opening in an isolated spot, tends to build a shop into the neighborhood's existing rhythm more naturally. People already headed to Rize, or already living in East Moab and running errands along that corridor, encounter Más Café as part of their normal day, not as a destination they have to specifically plan a trip toward.
The Menu: Café de Olla and House Syrups
Café de olla is the signature drink most worth knowing about at Más Café, a traditional Mexican preparation brewed with cinnamon and sweetened with piloncillo rather than pulled as a straight shot the way most American coffee counters default to. It is a distinct offering in a town where most cafe menus lean toward the same handful of espresso drinks.
Alongside café de olla, Más Café builds its menu around house syrups, giving customers a way to customize drinks with flavors made in house rather than pulled from a standard syrup bottle line. Together, café de olla and house syrups give Más Café a menu identity that is its own, rooted in a real culinary tradition rather than a generic template.
For a visitor used to ordering the same latte at every stop along a road trip, a menu built around café de olla and house syrups is a genuine change of pace. It gives Más Café a reason to be a destination stop in its own right, not just a convenient coffee stop on the way to somewhere else, and it reflects a real culinary tradition rather than a marketing gimmick dressed up to sound interesting.
Hours and How to Find It
Más Café keeps long, consistent hours, open from 7 in the morning to 7 at night, seven days a week, according to the Moab Sun News coverage of its opening. That is a schedule built for both early risers heading out toward Sand Flats or Mill Creek and for people looking for a coffee later in the day, which fits a shop trying to serve East Moab's actual daily rhythm rather than just a tourist rush hour.
For anyone trying to find Más Café, the address is the place to start: 344 S 400 E, on the East Moab corridor between downtown and the road up toward Sand Flats. Because the 2024 hours come from the opening story, it is worth checking the shop's current listing before making a special trip, especially in the quieter winter months when many Moab businesses adjust their schedules.
Twelve hours a day, seven days a week, is a demanding schedule for any small independent coffee shop to hold, and holding it consistently says something real about the operation behind the counter. It gives 400 East a reliable coffee stop that people can plan around without worrying about a shortened weekend schedule or an unpredictable closing time.
A Neighborhood Shop, Not a Tourist Trap
It would be easy for any coffee shop in a town like Moab to build its entire identity around tourist traffic, since so much of the local economy runs on visitors passing through for a few days at a time. Más Café leans into 400 East and its spot near Mill Creek and Sand Flats as a genuine neighborhood stop first, one that happily welcomes out of towners who find their way over.
That choice shows up in the details already covered here: long, consistent daily hours that serve locals on a regular schedule, a location sharing a stretch of 400 East with an existing business rather than sitting in an isolated tourist pocket, and a menu built around a traditional drink rather than the safest, most generic espresso lineup possible. None of that is an accident. It reflects a shop built to serve the people who actually live near Mill Creek and Sand Flats first, with visitors welcome to discover it along the way.
That does not mean visitors are an afterthought. A traveler exploring East Moab, heading up toward Sand Flats for a hike, or simply curious about what 400 East has to offer beyond the downtown strip, is welcome at Más Café too. It just means the shop was not designed around a single tourist rush, but around a neighborhood that needs a reliable coffee stop every single day of the year.
A Coffee Tradition Worth Slowing Down For
Café de olla has a real history behind it, brewed in clay pots across Mexico for generations, built around whole spices and unrefined sugar rather than the quick extraction of an espresso shot. Bringing that tradition to a coffee counter in a Utah desert town is a interesting choice, one that gives Moab visitors a chance to try something with real cultural depth behind it rather than another interchangeable latte.
There is a slower, more deliberate quality to a drink like café de olla, built around cinnamon and piloncillo rather than milk and syrup pumps, that fits well with the kind of trip a lot of Moab visitors are already on. People come here to slow down, to spend a full day on a trail or a river rather than rushing through a checklist, and a coffee shop offering a drink with that same unhurried, rooted quality fits the spirit of the place.
For a local regular, meanwhile, café de olla and house syrups offer something different from the standard rotation most coffee shops settle into. It gives 400 East a genuine point of distinction within Moab's wider coffee scene, a reason for someone who already has a regular coffee spot elsewhere in town to make the trip over and try something they cannot get anywhere else in Grand County, and the 400 East address makes that trip an easy one from almost anywhere in town.
A Shop Worth Knowing on 400 East
Más Café is a good example of what a coffee shop can look like when it grows out of a specific town rather than a franchise template. It opened on a street locals think of as their own, it built its menu around café de olla and house syrups rather than a generic espresso list, and it earned a welcome in the Moab Sun News in April 2024.
For anyone exploring East Moab near Mill Creek and Sand Flats, 344 S 400 E is worth the stop. It is a shop with a real story behind it, a specific menu identity, and hours built to serve the people who live in that part of town, not just the visitors passing through on their way to a trailhead.
Whether you are heading up toward Sand Flats for the day, walking over from a workout at Rize Training Studio, or simply exploring what East Moab has to offer beyond the downtown strip, Más Café gives that stretch of 400 East a coffee identity all its own, built on café de olla, house syrups, and a welcome from the local paper the spring it opened. It is a genuine addition to Grand County's coffee map, not a copy of anything else already on it.
Related Reading
More from this Hillcane city series, plus the pages on the site that sit next to the work.
Cafe Italiano Has Served Main Street From a Food Truck Since 2018
Horsethief Coffee Serves the Arches Corridor From March to November
Moab Coffee Is Main Street, 400 East, 400 North and Two Highways
The State of Specialty Coffee Visibility in North America (2026)
Google Business Profile for Coffee Shops: The Complete 2026 Checklist
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Más Café?
Más Café is at 344 S 400 E in East Moab, near Mill Creek and the road up toward the Sand Flats area. The Moab Sun News reported in April 2024 that the shop sits in a sublease next to Rize Training Studio on 400 East. That puts it on the corridor locals use for everyday errands, a short drive east of the downtown Main Street strip.
When did Más Café open?
The Moab Sun News covered Más Café's opening in a story published April 18, 2024, under a headline describing 400 East as Moab's Main Street for locals. The shop's address is 344 S 400 E. That makes it one of the newer independent coffee stops in Moab, which counts six independent shops across five corridors in a town of 5,316 residents.
What is Más Café known for?
Más Café is known for café de olla, a traditional Mexican coffee brewed with cinnamon and sweetened with piloncillo, along with a menu of house made syrups for customizing drinks. The Moab Sun News highlighted café de olla in its April 18, 2024 opening story. It is a drink few other desert town cafes offer, which makes 344 S 400 E worth a special trip.
What is café de olla?
Café de olla is a traditional Mexican coffee preparation, historically brewed in clay pots, spiced with cinnamon and sweetened with piloncillo, an unrefined cane sugar. It tastes warmer and rounder than a straight espresso drink. At Más Café, at 344 S 400 E in East Moab, it is the signature drink, served alongside espresso drinks flavored with the shop's own house syrups.
What hours did the Moab Sun News list for Más Café?
According to the Moab Sun News opening story from April 18, 2024, Más Café was open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week, at 344 S 400 E. Those hours come from the opening coverage, so it is worth checking the shop's current listing before a visit, especially in winter when many Moab businesses shorten their schedules.
Why is 400 East called Moab's Main Street for locals?
The phrase comes from the Moab Sun News headline on Más Café's April 18, 2024 opening. It fits because 400 East sits closer to where residents live and run errands, near Mill Creek and the road toward Sand Flats, while Main Street downtown, home to 90 N Main St and 83 S Main St, serves the visitor economy first.
Is Más Café the same as Dos Más Café?
No. They are separate businesses. Más Café is at 344 S 400 E in East Moab and is the shop covered in this piece. Dos Más Café is a different business with its own location on E Center St. The names are close enough to confuse a visitor, so the 400 East address is the surest way to make sure you are heading to the right place.
What are house syrups, and why do they matter?
House syrups are flavorings a cafe makes itself instead of buying a standard bottled line. At Más Café, at 344 S 400 E, they sit alongside café de olla as the core of the menu, letting customers flavor lattes and other drinks with something made in house. That gives the shop a menu identity that a visitor will not find at the chain kiosk in City Market.
Is Más Café a tourist stop or a neighborhood cafe?
Both, but the location leans local. Más Café sits at 344 S 400 E, on the corridor the Moab Sun News called Moab's Main Street for locals in April 2024, near Mill Creek and the Sand Flats road rather than on the downtown visitor strip. Visitors heading toward Sand Flats pass close by, and residents running errands on 400 East make it part of their routine.
How does Más Café fit into Moab's coffee map?
Moab's six independent coffee stops cover five corridors: two on downtown Main Street at 90 N Main St and 83 S Main St, one on 400 North at 495 W 400 N, one at 1266 N Hwy 191 on the Arches corridor, one at 1146 US 191 in Spanish Valley, and Más Café at 344 S 400 E, the East Moab stop near Mill Creek.
Work with Hillcane
Café de olla, brewed with cinnamon and piloncillo, is the signature drink at Más Café on Moab's 400 East, a shop the Moab Sun News welcomed in April 2024.
If your Moab coffee shop has a story like Más Café's worth telling well online, reach Hillcane at hillcane.co/contact or call (256) 384-2449.
Comments