Community first, coffee second.
That’s a tenet during Bandit Coffee Co., that during 3 p.m. on a new weekday was so packaged it was tough to find a seat. The emporium in St. Petersburg’s Grand Central district non-stop in 2016, and has given usually built a constant following that seems to come as many for a atmosphere as for a cold brew.
Owners Sarah and Joshua Weaver both grew adult in a Tampa Bay area, met in high school, antiquated in college and after married. After graduating from Flagler College in St. Augustine, they changed behind to Tampa and worked offered jobs that didn’t do many for their community-oriented goals.
“I wasn’t investing in a community,” pronounced Joshua, 29. “And we felt a miss of tie with who we was operative with.”
They brewed for their coworkers, brought an Aero Press into a office. Eventually, they came to a flare in a road, and chose a trail that led to coffee.
“We met during a coffee shop,” pronounced Sarah, 28. “Our giveaway time was spent in coffee shops. It became a hobby of ours.”
“We sought it out when we trafficked to other cities,” Joshua said. “We fell in adore with coffee shops. It felt like a heart of a city, in each new city we stopped in.”
Joshua is wavering to use a tenure “entrepreneur,” though it’s protected to contend he had a business-oriented mind from a immature age.
“I was always meddlesome in portion a need in a market,” he said. In high school, he bought skateboards indiscriminate afterwards sole them to his peers for a profit, since there wasn’t a internal skateboard emporium nearby.
That suggestion helped them take a jump to open their possess space.
Joshua and his dad, who’s a contractor, built many of what we see in a shop, operative on weekends over 6 months to, with Sarah, emanate a bright, cozy, minimalist vibe.
She’s worked diligently to emanate a cohesive space and desirable cultured that extends even to their amicable media posts.
What about a coffee? Bandit sources a beans from countries like Mexico and roasts them locally. They import single-origin coffees, a imagination approach of observant a beans come from one place. They can speak to we about coffee farms and bean grading systems. But a final thing they wish to do is divide people with potentially pretended terms.
For them, Bandit has initial and inaugural been a possibility to bond with a folks around them.
“It’s turn some-more critical to build a space for a tangible community,” Joshua said. “We take coffee so seriously. But it’s only coffee during a finish of a day. And if we do a jobs right, afterwards a patron will only know it tastes good.”
The coffee menu is simple. They don’t do a ton of season syrups or flow overs. Baristas are useful and attentive, offering, “Our new Ethiopian fry is unequivocally good.”
Sarah and Joshua like places around city that make we feel gentle as we are, restaurants like Rooster and a Till with stellar use and food where we don’t feel out of place in a T-shirt.
A integrate months ago, Bandit started offered drink and wine, focusing generally on healthy wines. In May, a Weavers hosted their initial eventuality that had zero to do with coffee: a booze tasting with a Florida-based City Beautiful Beverage Company.
At a finish of July, they debuted a brief food menu, bringing on prepare Shane Schuch to prepare to sequence out of a tiny kitchen space they built in a behind of a shop. For now, it’s several toasts, bowls, egg sandwiches, yogurt parfaits.
There are some engaging touches like hunger bulb butter on a ricotta toast and an egg-tomato plate called shakshuka, things we might not design to see in a some-more normal coffee shop. Food is served a integrate days a week for now, though they are already forgetful adult a bigger menu.
Bandit also recently combined a new Instagram account, @banditstpete, that’s some-more broadly focused. It’s full of photos of delicious toasts, wines in batch during a shop, teases to arriving events. There’s hardly a coffee crater in sight. (Their strange Instagram, @banditcoffeeco, will be used to prominence their coffee partners and their new roastery, a mile divided from Bandit.)
They horde events monthly now, partnering with booze companies and internal food purveyors for happy hours that extend good past their unchanging hours. On a weekends, they’ve hold plant shows and bakery pop-ups.
The suspicion of an all-day cafeteria is something a Weavers encountered in Europe and other vital cities in America. It’s not a new concept, though it’s one that they felt would be a good fit for their dilemma of Central Avenue.
“Through a cafeteria and a staff, we all fell in adore with hospitality,” Sarah said. “So that includes coffee, beer, booze and food. Our coffee bar skills have transitioned utterly easily.”
Sarah reminisced about a booze bar she visited recently in Montreal that also served a torpedo breakfast. She suspicion of it when a organisation of 21-year-olds came into Bandit a new weekend morning and bought a bottle of rosé to take with them to a beach.