standing.

“I couldn’t believe the space had survived,” Sinclair said of the 1920s garage, painted green and named “KC’s Service Station” for a film shoot. “What was cool was I was looking inside and see it was filled to the brim. The garage bays too: there was a grandfather clock, mattresses, even a safe, bags of clothes, photo albums, and I realized these are memories.”

Sinclair realized evacuees had somehow been able to store their valuables in their frenzy to escape the fire.

“I felt that in a deep sense and the responsibility of it,” he said. “I hope Mad Lab will always be the place where people look to as a safe place to store their valuable memories. That we help in the keeping of your valuable memories, the creation of your valuable memories, and the joy in the sharing of those valuable memories.”

Sinclair was standing outside the shop when Doug Hall approached him. It turns out Hall, 39, owner of Doug Wash Auto Detailing nearby, was the man everyone turned to the night of the fire.

Hall and his family ran Doug’s Jerk Center from the station on weekends, attracting loyal fans to their jerk chicken, roasted red snapper, plantains and Caribbean festival bread. A longtime Altadenan, the station’s previous landlords gave him the keys to the place, which is why Hall was able to open it up to allow fire evacuees to leave their valuables. It was also how they were able to arrange to pick them up in the days and months after.

“I didn’t even know someone had leased it,” Hall said. “I even let the Red Cross use it. It’s been such a part of the community.”

Sinclair waved away Hall’s apologies: “I told him ‘I’m glad you did that,’ ” he said.

Sinclair is happy to learn more about his soon-to-be adopted hometown, site of many father-daughter dates he’s had.

“Altadena is like a little place and it’s easy to like everybody,” Hall said, who offered free car washes to people in the days after the fire. “There are so many mom and pop shops.”

Hall, who lost his home in the fire and now lives in Alhambra, said he would be happy to return to serve jerk chicken that fans say is better than their grandmothers’ version. His auto detailing business remains open.

Sinclair said he wants some of that goodness too, even as he spends the summer getting the spot ready for Mad Lab Coffee.

“I’m beyond excited to serve the neighbors of Altadena on Lake Avenue,” Sinclair wrote on Instagram, where his soon-to-be neighbors chimed in with notes of welcome and promises to make Mad Lab Altadena a regular stop for what Sinclair calls a “better addiction.”

“Coffee shops give life to neighborhoods,” he said.

Noting people will need lots of coffee as they rebuild, Sinclair, who was born and raised in Texas, said starting over is in people’s blood there.

“We’re born with it,” he said. And coffee people such as himself, exist for other people.

“Coffee shop owners are not going to be millionaires,” he said. “But we’re different breed and we can’t wait to love on people a whole lot more.”

Sinclair and his wife, Sarah, started Mad Lab in downtown L.A. in 2012, driven by a need to claim space for L.A. coffee. They have since opened locations in Hollywood, the Culver City area, and on Pico Boulevard in L.A.

Mad Lab’s Hollywood location on Sunset Boulevard opened in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic and social justice protests.

“We moved in because, even though it was the middle of the pandemic and the uprisings, the neighborhood still deserved to be served. Because for me, coffee is a sense of normalcy,” Sinclair said. “Coffee has that ability to do that, to let you know everything’s going to be okay. There’s a safeness about it. We showed up for our neighborhood, and our neighborhood said, ‘Wow, OK, these people are really about what they preach.’ ”

It’s why Sinclair said they haven’t raised their prices since 2020.

And it’s what makes Sinclair eager to get to know his Altadena neighbors this summer as he works to open. The formula is simple: “You like coffee? Dude, so do I. Let’s enjoy it together.”

Mad Lab’s historical site, built in the 1920s, already has its own fans, since it is the place where many movies and music videos were filmed, including the first “Transformers” movie with Shia LaBeouf and “Dodgeball” with Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn. Fans of Southern California architecture also love the place.

Without changing much, the Sinclairs are planning to offer outdoor seating and perhaps a small restaurant (nothing to compete with Doug’s Jerk Center). If permits aren’t too hard to get, there could be a drive-thru. For Sinclair, who drives into town in a blue F150 pickup with 221,000 miles on it, “I Got You, Babe” playing on the stereo, and who is at home in jeans, a white T-shirt and a black “Wayne’s World” cap, the timing is exactly right to open a business in Altadena.

He’s already found common ground with Hall and other entrepreneurial, creative Altadenans who are holding on to hope and vowing not to give up on a town that welcomed the quirky and the bold way before the fires came.

“I’m more excited to meet more people,” Sinclair said. “I think it’s going to be a special moment when we open and create those memories.”