Build-Outs Of Summer: Home Imbrewvement With Beansmith Coffee

They’re here! It’s back! Welcome to the 2013 Edition of Build-Outs of Summer. We’ve got some truly great cafes lined up to profile right out of the gate, as we get ready for the long, hot sweaty days of July. Our running Build-Outs series will be featuring cafes from all sorts of different places – big markets, small markets, established markets, brand freakin’ new markets, Asia, Canada, Europe, and all points in-between.

From the fanciest new ultra-labs in the world’s richest neighborhoods to the humblest small town brew bars, Build-Outs of Summer takes all kinds. We love to tell these stories! First up in this year’s series, we’re proud to feature the brand new location of Beansmith Coffee, a specialty coffee roaster / retailer in Omaha, Nebraska.

The following interview is as told to Sprudge by Kait Berreckman of Beansmith. 

Can you tell us a bit about your new space? 

Beansmith Coffee is primarily a wholesale and online retail roaster. This is our first venture into the beverage-serving part of coffee (yay!). The Lobby (that’s the name of the shop) is located in the front third of our suite which is in a building with a construction company, auto repair shop, and some other business that I still haven’t quite figured out. It’s in a weird industrial area of southwest Omaha, across the street from a dying cornfield and (like most good specialty coffee roasteries) just south of a craft brewery.

The space used to look like your average office lobby with a drab kitchen that just happened to have a bunch of kettles and cupping bowls. But now, with its polished concrete floors, airy blue walls, stainless steel countertops, and bangin’ 2-group La Marzocco Linea, it’s a bona fide coffee bar. Along with operating as a coffee bar, we’ll use the space to host events, tastings, classes for home enthusiasts, and training for wholesale accounts.

 

What’s your approach to serving coffee?

We will be offering a simple espresso menu, Chemex service for 2-4, Clever service for 1, and a daily brew. Our goal is not only to give people a living, breathing Beansmith experience but also to satisfy our own urge to see the beans through… To take care of our own babies, if you know what I mean. Specialty coffee is still pretty new to a lot of Nebraskans, so we want to offer a welcoming, familiar place for people to gather, learn, and try new things.

We’re using the best dairy in the area, Burbach’s Countryside Dairy. It’s a single-family operation who process and bottle (in glass) all the milk themselves, right on their farm, as fresh as it gets. It’s hormone free and effing delicious. We’ll also be offering free granola, local toast, and you can bring your own cereal! We charge no no corkage (boxage?) fee.

Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?

We’ve got a pretty basic equipment set up and an extremely efficient bar. 2-group Linea Classic, Mahlkonig K30 Vario, Chemexes, Clevers, Curtis hot water tower, and the cutest portable ice machine ever. We recently switched from an 80-kilo Diedrich roaster to a 12-kilo San Franciscan, and we also just switched sample roasters from our Diedrich HR-1 to a Husky (handmade in Taiwan…gorgeous). Obviously, we’ll be serving Beansmith Coffee, but we hope to use the bar as an excuse to bring in smaller lots, try out adventurous espresso blends, and play with signature beverages. From time to time, we get awesome treats from other roasters and I’m sure we’ll find a place for them on our menu at The Lobby.

What’s your hopeful target opening month?

We’re having our first soft open next Thursday, July 18th. We hope to be up and running for real in August and host a grand opening early September. The address is 12012 Roberts Rd. Suite C. La Vista, NE 68128