Established coffee companies are getting into the cold brew game hard these days, expanding their offerings line with bottled options and cute lil’ cartons. But what about a company that first made waves with cold brew expanding their options into a full-on cafe? The folks at Anchorhead Coffee are doing just that, setting out to open an 1100 square foot cafe in downtown Seattle with floor to ceiling windows. They’ll be baking pastries in-house, which is unusual for this part of the world, and using an espresso machine from Synesso, whose factory is just down the road in SoDo.
As told to Sprudge by Jake Paulson of Anchorhead Coffee.
For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?
Anchorhead Coffee started in May of 2013 as a wholesale roaster and cold brew bottling company. Since then we have gotten product into 165+ locations throughout Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. Along with our growing wholesale, we won America’s Best Espresso at Coffee Fest Portland and had a lot of interest in our coffees locally and throughout the US.
Can you tell us a bit about the new space?
The new space is located in the 1600 7th building in downtown Seattle. It’s 1,100 square feet, but will have one side opened up to the lobby giving a little more space for seating. Our main goal with this cafe was to have a different look and feel than most cafes in the city right now, and we think we have achieved that. The cafe will be mostly black, with a lot of dark woods, steel, black and grey tile, which will all be brightened up by floor to ceiling windows.
What’s your approach to coffee?
We used to work in audio doing live sound for touring bands, so we are very technical people by nature. This is no different with coffee. We spend a lot of time sourcing, roasting, and playing with coffee to see what we can actually get out of it. Customer service and customer education is also a top priority for us. We feel the coffee world can be kind of daunting for outside consumers at points, and we want to make sure that isn’t the case with our cafe. Our goal is to have knowledgeable baristas, that will do whatever they can to make sure the customer has a great experience.
Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?
We will be using a three-group Synesso MVP Hydra paired with two Mahlkönig Peak grinders for espresso. Then we will have a Poursteady to handle our rotating single-origin menu, and three to four cold brew tap options. We will also be baking all our pastries in-house, and have some unique waffle options that are magical.
What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?
Hopefully the beginning of September.
Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?
Moss Interior Design, Armstrong Construction.
What’s the address?
1600 7th Ave #105, Seattle, Washington.
