Faux marigolds shine orange from the counter of Café Dulzura, a smiling skull watching from the logo on the wall. “I want it to be Día de los Muertos every day here,” says Maria Cid, owner of the coffee shop in Burien’s Boulevard Park neighborhood.

Each table comes set with fresh flowers, each drink imbued with the flavors of Mexico, but more than anything, it’s Cid’s enthusiasm that fills the small space with so much color and spirit. Her love for Mexico City, where she was raised, and for Seattle, her hometown for more than three decades, meet in the culmination of a longtime dream: opening her own Mexican coffee shop.

Flanked by a rich blue wall hung with art from local Mexican artists, Cid serves yellow- and pink-topped conchas from a pastry case while carrying on conversations with the steady stream of customers. She compares local yoga studios, distracts an upset toddler so the child’s parents can order, and advises on the Mazapan latte versus the Mexi mocha.

Cid is quick to credit her community for the café’s success. As she explains that the building used to be Moore Coffee Shop, she picks up the pan dulce at South Park’s Pasteleria y Panaderia La Ideal, and brings in beans from Fulcrum Coffee, she describes how the owners of those businesses helped her navigate first-time coffee shop ownership.

The Fulcrum beans meet Cid’s mother’s horchata recipe and other flavors of Mexico, all designed by Cid, who skipped premade concentrates in favor of trusting her own palate. Sometimes, that meant giving up on ideas if she couldn’t make them taste like her memories, as happened with the churro latte idea. Other times, it means explaining menu items over and over, as she does with the café de olla and, on the food side, the guajolota—the hefty Mexico City street food made by nestling a tamal into a roll for a sandwich that pairs best with a postprandial nap.

These are the foods she was raised on. “When I have them here, it makes me think of when I was growing up in Mexico,” says Cid, “the little things that really made me happy.” For her customers from Mexico, she wants them to feel like they’re at home. For those from elsewhere, simply to feel welcome.

The small ofrenda, a Día de los Muertos altar she keeps year-round, contributes to that, helping her to share her favorite holiday with customers. When people think the tradition is about celebrating death in a dark way, she shows off the opposite. “We’re actually celebrating the life that our dead people live,” she says, and doing it in a big, bright, colorful way. In a city known for long, gloomy days, Cid and Café Dulzura add a grande serving of marigold-orange-tinted hospitality.