[ Above: Village Grind co-owner Lindsey George prepares a pour over. ]
A new coffee academy is only the latest result from a tide of demand for a more sophisticated coffee experience – and with downtown reaching capacity for bean slingers, entrepreneurs are pushing their craft beyond Greenville’s city limits
The Upstate has worked up a terrible thirst.
Thirst, that is, for a sophisticated coffee experience – and not just in downtown Greenville, if recent openings are any indication. A plethora of downtown bean slingers is pushing coffee entrepreneurs to spread their craft beyond city limits.
At least five specialty coffee shops have opened their doors during the past year, including two since January. That’s in addition to a coffee-powered music venue and an upcoming specialty coffee training center to build the Upstate’s certified barista workforce.
While cafés aren’t new in themselves, what’s surprising is the emphasis on one of the industry’s niche markets – specialty coffee – said Ricardo Pereira, co-owner of Taylors-based Due South Coffee Roasters, which opened as a specialty coffee venue and roasting company in Taylors Mill last year. “Specialty” is defined as coffee beans with quality ratings of 80 points or higher out of a hundred, while coffee with fewer than 80 points is commercial-grade coffee. Five shops opening in the last year is a sign the Upstate is growing up, he said.
“The South is the last part of the country coming around to take the movement of the Northeast and the Northwest,” said Pereira, a longtime coffee importer and current specialty coffee manager for Ally Brazilian Coffee Merchants. “The Southeast is starting to actually move, and Greenville is the same way.”
[ Above, from left: Pour over set up at Due South Coffee Roasters in Taylors Mill; espresso dripping at Village Grind in the Village of West Greenville; a barista at Methodical Coffee in downtown Greenville prepares a brewed beverage. ]
AWARENESS, INTERNATIONALS & A GOOD CUP OF COFFEE
Several factors lie behind rising demand, most notably the increase in public awareness and knowledge about specialty coffee, said Travelers Rest-based Leopard Forest Coffee Company co-owner Adam Kelley.
Founded in 2004, Leopard Forest roasts coffee from Africa and Central and South America for use all over the country. The company has seen around a 10 percent bump in demand every year since it opened, Kelley said.
“Once people become more educated in specialty things … the more they know, the more they want,” he said. “I think it’s the demand for the artisanal craft nature of it.”
Once people are aware of the quality coffee available, they’re more likely to seek it out, said Lindsey George, co-owner of The Village Grind, a specialty coffee shop that debuted last October in The Village of West Greenville.
George – along with business partners Jim Bolt and Carl Chambers – said the shop uses Due South coffee and focuses on quality ingredients. While she said she’s not a coffee snob, most people can tell the difference between commercial and specialty coffee. “If you put them side by side, there’s a difference,” she said.
Greenville’s growing population of diverse and well-traveled coffee drinkers is also driving the trend, as people from larger metropolitan areas and from overseas have different expectations for their cup of joe, said Spartanburg-based Bella Latte General Manager Eric Blanton. Located near the BMW Performance Center, GSP International Airport and several other large companies, Blanton said half of the shop’s customer base is from around the world.
“It’s interesting to see that they have a very different definition of what coffee is compared to the average person from South Carolina,” Blanton said, noting the shop has carved out a niche for itself by providing a high-quality cup of coffee with more convenience and speed. “They want the quality of something you’d get at Due South, but they don’t have time to wait for the long brew.”
[ READ MORE | Coffee Academy aims to slake Upstate’s thirst for baristas ]
OVERCROWDING DOWNTOWN
Of the five specialty coffee shops added in the last year, four opened outside of downtown Greenville, revealing the small area’s limit for supporting such a high number of existing coffee shops, said Coffee & Crema founder Shannon Hudgens, who serves specialty coffee at 2 N. Main St.
The area immediately surrounding his shop supports Moe Joe Coffee and Music House, Port City Java, Coffee Underground, and recently opened Methodical Coffee and The Chocolate Moose, which recently began emphasizing its coffee, Hudgens said. “We have reached our capacity in these three blocks at least.”
Competition and crowding downtown was one of the reasons Michael and Roxanne Bacaro decided to open their shop – Exchange Co. Coffee Bar and Bake Shop – in Simpsonville last month.
“Instead of competing there, we wanted to go where the need was,” said Michael Bacaro, whose shop brews specialty coffee from a roaster in Tennessee. “In downtown Greenville, I probably couldn’t even count the number of shops. We moved here about a year ago and there was just no local coffee shop … the city’s growing, so I think it was just a matter of time.”
Housed in a historic building in Simpsonville, Exchange Co. was founded on the premise of creating a space to build community, Bacaro said. While coffee chains such as Starbucks played a significant role in building interest and awareness about coffee, there is certainly room for growth for independent shops in the area in the future, he said.
“As the understanding of coffee really expands, people want more than just their daily fix for a dollar at McDonald’s,” he said. “When you think about larger cities, there are different things that appeal to different people. … If I drink coffee everyday like many people do, I may want a different environment.”
SPREADING THE BUZZ
The Village Grind co-owner Lindsey George said support from the local artist community in The Village of West Greenville has been strong and consistent, likely because the coffee house filled a niche the community needed.
Rather than open a shop in Greenville during a less-than-stellar economy, now-Stomping Grounds co-proprietor Lisa Garland said she saw more of a need in Greer for a coffee house. Garland – who completed coffee courses in Portland – said she has seen “definitely a change in the trends for coffee.”
Garland said while the shop doesn’t work with specialty coffee, customers have begun to ask for specialty preparation methods such as pour-overs and French press coffee, a sign of an increasingly sophisticated coffee customer, she said.
“Over the three years we’ve been here, as we’ve had a chance to educate people about good coffee … I’ve seen my customers evolve from starting out with heavy cream and sugar to putting a drop of cream in because they’ve had a chance to develop their palate,” she said. “There’s definitely a change in the trends of coffee for sure.”
As Stomping Grounds has become a destination coffee shop, Garland says she’s been approached by neighboring towns about opening locations, since coffee houses act as local cultural and community hubs and are more convenient for residents.
“Inman and Woodruff have been screaming for establishments to come out their direction because Woodruff people go to Greenville and Inman people go to Landrum or Spartanburg,” she said. “We’re more than just coffee.”
[ ABOVE: Younghwa Hudgens with Coffee & Crema at work in the Main Street coffee counter in downtown Greenville. ]
BUILDING A MOVEMENT
Building awareness of specialty coffee in Greenville started more than 10 years ago with Coffee & Crema, known among local coffee aficionados as the first specialty coffee shop in the Upstate, said coffee connoisseur Will Shurtz.
Known for his traveling brew bar business Vagabond Barista, Shurtz is also co-owner of Methodical Coffee, a specialty coffee shop that opened this year in the Bank of America Building in downtown Greenville.
“They started this whole trend of specialty coffee in Greenville,” said Shurtz, referring to Coffee & Crema owner Shannon Hudgens, who gained fame with his coffee bar in Haywood Mall and now operates across from Methodical at 2 N. Main St. “Before Coffee & Crema … specialty coffee in Greenville and in the Southeast was really lacking and almost nonexistent.”
Coffee & Crema served as an unofficial training ground for many of Greenville coffee’s movers and shakers, said Alex Medina, who will soon launch a specialty coffee academy to teach aspiring baristas the fine points of fine coffee making. Medina began his career in coffee with an eight-year stint at Coffee & Crema before working at Due South.
“A lot of people who are in the shops that have opened in specialty coffee either knew someone who worked at Coffee & Crema or worked there as well,” he said. “It’s like if it wasn’t for that, a lot of people might not have gotten into specialty coffee, or it would have taken a lot longer to get to where it is now.”
Born in Greer, Hudgens spent several years out of state and out of the country before returning and starting Coffee & Crema in 2004. Hudgens said he was the first to do a “single-origin” espresso in the Upstate, or offering an espresso made from a single type of bean rather than a blend of several. Doing so – and with high-quality coffee – could be expensive, and he has had people walk away or remind him that coffee used to be a quarter a cup after looking at his prices.
“You’ve got to decide on where you cut corners on, and … the easiest thing to cut corners on is the cost of coffee,” he said. “Greenville in the last 10 years has come a long way.”
