The Navilumane Estate connection
Milana Ram and Himanshu Bhaisare opened Le Mil’s Coffee on August 15 in San Francisco’s Lower Nob Hill neighborhood. The shop uses coffee from Navilumane Estate, a farm Ram’s family has owned for five generations. Ram’s great-great-grandfather, Kalasapur Thimmiah, received 200 acres of farmland in Karnataka from the Mysore royal family. The family’s land holdings shrank over time as subsequent generations sold their shares, but Ram’s parents still manage 20 acres in Baba Budangiri and Hassan. Ram recalls spending time as a child on the 60 acres her grandfather owned. The owners, who met in 2008 at San Francisco State University while pursuing master’s degrees in computer science and electrical engineering, planned to bring Indian coffee to the city for many years before they finally opened this cafe in 2026. Starting in 2026, the business began sourcing beans from neighboring farms alongside the family’s crop, which produced only one ton in 2023. The long, white-walled shop on Polk Street displays woven rattan pendants and leafy plants hanging from South Asian basket installations.
Production and menu items
Ram buys the entire crop of organically produced S795, S274, Selection 9, and Cauvery coffees. These beans undergo washed and natural post-harvest processing before Ram roasts them every two weeks at the CoRo shared facility in Berkeley. The beverage menu includes South Indian filter coffee, qishr, manual pourovers, and espresso drinks, alongside food items like nan khai, gulab jamun cake, mango-cardamom cake, and vegan lassi.
| Coffee Variety | Processing Method |
|---|---|
| S795 | Washed and natural |
| S274 | Washed and natural |
| Selection 9 | Washed and natural |
| Cauvery | Washed and natural |
A long, natural-wood bar with colorful epoxy accents and a Modbar undercounter espresso system occupies the space between baristas and customers. Bhaisare, who was raised in Mumbai, leads marketing, finance, technology, and distribution for Le Mil’s. He maintains a career in software engineering while working with Ram to prove the unit economics of their cafe lounge concept. Bhaisare and Ram designed the basket installations that hang above the ground-floor main area and at eye level for guests seated on an upstairs mezzanine. As demand grows, the baristas on the team participate in roasting sessions to engage with the beans at a deeper level.
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