Today’s Build-Out takes us to Charlotte, NC for a look inside the newly opened HEX Coffee Kitchen & Natural Wines, a space offering the very best in modern beverage alongside some really beautiful looking food. They’re open now there in Charlotte, which means today’s Build is also an early look inside a cafe you can go and enjoy right now. Happy drinking!
The 2023 Build-Outs of Coffee is presented by DONA. The 2023 Build-Outs of Coffee is sponsored by La Marzocco, Pacific Barista Series, Acaia, and Marco Beverage Systems.
As told to Sprudge by Chandler Wrenn.
For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?
HEX is a progressive coffee roaster and cafe located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Our intention is to highlight provenance and elevate the offerings of the producer to the levels deserving of the producer’s work.
Can you tell us a bit about the new space?
Our new space is to us is the culmination of the years of conceptualizing and planning exactly what type of experience we’d hope people may have with our coffees. For us, it offers a sort of playground and a showcase for our coffees. Putting coffee and our bar at the forefront, we hope to offer a highly conceptualized and intentional food menu reflective of our own provenance, detail oriented coffee offerings, and natural wines also reflective of terroir and the character of the producers.
What’s your approach to coffee?
We do our best to source relationally based coffees built on long-standing partnerships, and roast them to highlight provenance and terroir, prioritizing vibrant and clean flavors. At the cafe our goal is to display each of those coffees as best we can, putting the work of the producer at the forefront.
Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?
We run our espresso and the fabled “coffee shots” (which we are offering off of a freezer menu) on our ModBar three-group AV. We’re brewing our filter offerings on a Curtis with a Litmus sprayhead and we grind on Malkhönig EK43s and an e65s for espresso.
How is your project considering sustainability?
A slightly loaded question, but I think nothing can be approached here without taking a holistic view towards it. We’ve been working with a local composting company here for years for anything we can compost and our bartops are built off entirely sustainable, recycled materials. Outside of that, we hope that the relationships that we build with our vendors (coffee, wine, and food) are built off the basis of long-term sustainability, allowing our producers to have a voice and speak to what their needs may be.
What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?
We opened in May 2023.
Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?
We would like to highlight Prism Supply Company for all of our metal work and patio furniture, Matt Mottershead with Eleven Four LLC for our custom serving boards and tables and various millwork, and our friend Bryan Southwick at Southwick Architecture + Interiors for the architecture and collaborative work in helping design this space.
Thank you!
The 2023 Build-Outs of Coffee is presented by DONA. The 2023 Build-Outs of Coffee is sponsored by La Marzocco, Pacific Barista Series, Acaia, and Marco Beverage Systems.
