In just 10 years, Methodical Coffee has expanded from just a coffee shop to roastery.
Although Greenville-based, the business announced its first operation outside the Upstate in April 2024 with a Columbia location in the Bull Street District. According to co-founder Marco Suarez, the Bull Street opening is a little of what to expect over the next 10 years.
“I think the primary focus is on cafes,” Suarez said. “Our goal is to open up at least one cafe a year. … One of the other things that I’m excited about is building out the infrastructure to make that happen: The operations, the distribution, the logistics.”
Since its launch on Feb. 11, 2015, the coffee shop has added three retail locations and a wholesale operation that comprises about half the business. Additionally, in March 2024 the coffee company acquired Bake Room and added pastries to its offerings.
On the wholesaling end, the goals for the future are simple: Continue what the owners are doing by cultivating sustainable relationships.
The retail goal is to expand the coffee shops. The partners – Marco Suarez, Will Shurtz, and David Baker – have been hard at work at prepping framework by establishing educational opportunities for staff and implementing a nearly 40,000-square-foot roasting facility with co-working kitchen component in 2022.
The challenge is to continue the growth without losing the pillars of community, connection, craft and complexity.
“It is easy for you to slip on quality, customer experience as you grow, if you’re growing too fast,” Suarez said. “We want to make sure that we are as well-built on the inside as we are on the outside, and we uphold a high standard internally and externally.”
Looking back at Methodical Coffee
At the time of its inception, a goal for the business was to be the city’s first coffee shop that existed in the third wave of America’s coffee culture. It was designed to be a casual, sleek facility where customers could get lattes with house-made syrups from owners who knew their coffee farmers.
The business took off, quickly moving from side hustle to a full-time job. Suarez initially had no intention of leaving his career in tech. Although he “grossly underestimated” how challenging running a coffee shop would be, he fell in love with it.
“The initial vision was just this,” Suarez said on a chilly morning at the Methodical location in downtown Greenville. “And then almost immediately, we started thinking about, like, what’s next?”
Bake Room
The morning buns are always popular. Photo provided by Methodical Coffee.
The acquisition of Bake Room proved to be a profitable move, as Methodical’s sale of baked goods “exploded” in 2024 and added pastry element to a cafe that was always coffee first. Suarez said there is a plan to reopen Bake Room’s old space in The Commons but declined to set a date.
