Haywood Park Café triggers deja vu.
The small grab-and-go breakfast and lunch eatery opened last week in the Haywood Park atrium with many familiar products, including Starbucks coffee and West End Bakery snacks.
The Starbucks Siren, encircled by the words “we proudly serve,” surveys the atrium from her perch below the café‘s sign. She smiles out from the coffee cups, bottled Frappucinos and table tents. She’s in her element; Starbucks logos far outnumber Haywood Park Café branding.
Until now, Starbucks has had a limited presence downtown. The snack bar in the Aloft hotel sells its coffee. “Even though it is a national brand, we feel that a lot of people do respect the Starbucks brand,” says Jenny Herman, marketing director for FIRC group, which owns Haywood Park and manages the café. “[It] is a distinguishing feature for us to offer the Starbucks coffee in a downtown location.”
Officially, the café is an authorized purveyor of Starbucks beverages, and it has a licensing agreement with the chain to use the Siren logo. “We are a locally owned company — just the beverages that we provide are Starbucks beverages,” she says. “We are not branding ourselves as Starbucks.”
The café will balance the chain coffee with local offerings, she explains. Sandwiches and stromboli come from The Panini Factory. Cinnamon rolls, cookies, brownies, lemon bars and other baked treats come from West End Bakery. When Isa’s Bistro, another FIRC-affiliated restaurant, opens next-door, it could provide fare for the small eatery.
The café offers Wi-Fi, and while there’s no seating inside, the picnic tables in the atrium serve that purpose.
Haywood Park Café, 46 Haywood St., is open daily from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, visit haywoodparkcafe.com.
Before you comment
The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.