Flea explained his songwriting process in an interview with Bass Player magazine:

“Coffee Shop” would never have been a song if it weren’t for this effect called the [Electro-Harmonix] BassBalls. I started playing with it one morning in Hawaii, and it had the most amazing underwater, Bootsy kind of sound-and it also had this siren effect going on. But when we got to L.A. to start recording, the box never made the sound again. I got so mad, I crushed it! I almost didn’t even want to record the song, because to me, it was all about that bass sound. I ended up using a Boss Dynamic Filter on the record […] We didn’t know what to do at the end, so I said, “I’ll solo.” I played the track once, and I wanted to fix it later because I thought it sucked, but I never did.