PennyCup Coffee Co. opens a cafe, tasting room

COMMUNITY SPACE: A bar and furnishings by local artisan Jake Dann and metalwork by the River Arts District's Iron Maiden Studios are features of the decor at PennyCup Coffee Co.'s new café on Depot Street. Photo courtesy of PennyCup Coffee Co.

PennyCup Coffee Co. opened the doors to its brand-new Depot Street café and tasting room on Monday, June 29, providing the River Arts District with another community hangout space.

The local, small-batch coffee-roasting company has grown rapidly since it launched two years ago and now supplies coffee to BattleCat Coffee Bar, Hole Doughnuts, Chai Pani, Earth Fare, Ben’s Penny Mart and Mountain Mojo in Fairview. With the new storefront, owners Bill Tanner and Amber Arthur, are serving numerous varieties of drip coffee, espresso, espresso drinks, specialty blends and cold-brew iced coffee.

“The café here was part of our original plan when we started talking about this three years ago. When we got the space, we decided that maybe we should put the café on the back burner while we focused on roasting or until our product was up to speed,” says Tanner. “We did that. We had been roasting for about a year and a half, and then we really started to go forward on this phase.”

An ever-evolving seasonal selection of freshly roasted small-batch coffee will grace the café’s menu. “The stuff changes almost by the month. It’s a seasonal product so we’re always getting new samples in, checking coffees out and going from there,” says Tanner. The menu will also offer baked goods prepared by the owners themselves.

Getting the place up and operating was a community endeavor. The café’s wooden bar was created by hobbyist Jake Dann, who will also construct any additional furniture that will fill out the space over the next few months. Tina Councell‘s Iron Maiden Studios did the metalwork.

The café provides customers a view of the roasting area. “We want to be in a position where people can come in and see some work being done while they’re hanging out,” says Tanner. “The ideal scenario is to have a barista behind the bar while I’m roasting. It will be a situation where people can watch the process and then talk to the barista about what is going on.”

PennyCup Coffee Co., at 362 Depot St., is open 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturday.

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About Jacqui Castle
Jacqui Castle is a freelance writer who began contributing to Mountain Xpress in 2014. When she is not writing, she is living it up in the Fairview mountains with her family of four.

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