The 2014 edition of Build-Outs Of Summer is in full swing. This series celebrates new cafes, small business, and communities in the making—or in the growing! We’ll be bringing Build-Outs of Summer features to you for the next several months, and we’re still taking tips on new projects. As long as white shoes and iced pour-overs are in effect, our open call for summer build-out submissions is, too.
Today’s feature comes from Bold Bean Coffee Roasters in Jacksonville, Florida, a place where some might argue it’s always summer, and thus, this space has actually just opened as of last week. This second Bold Bean location in Jacksonville Beach offers coffee, craft beer, wine, and kombucha on tap, all part of the cafe’s goal to truly reflect the neighborhood it inhabits. And by neighborhood we mean a beach.
“We concentrate on roasting, brewing and serving outstanding single origin coffees and creating community focused atmospheres in our shops,” says Bold Bean Coffee roaster Zack Burnett (Zack is also the son of the owner, Jay Burnett).
“After the success of our first shop in the historic Riverside neighborhood of Jacksonville, we have recently opened our second location in Jacksonville Beach and have been steady since day one.”
As told by Zack Burnett to Sprudge.com.
Can you tell us about the first Bold Bean cafe?
Our original shop in Riverside reflects the neighborhood that surrounds it. It is located in an 80-year-old building boasting original open rafter ceilings and brick walls. We worked with our good friends Jason Fisher and Greg Beere at Content Design Group to bring a modern industrial design to the already great bones of the building. The original shop is dark-toned with a floor-to-ceiling Brazilian walnut wall behind the bar, carbonized steel countertops and a custom built bar, shelving, pastry case and pour over station built by our good friend John Comee at Shiloh Furniture Company. The original shop was, until recently, home to our main roasting operations which were separated from the main cafe by large windows.
Is the new space similar?
For our new shop we used the same design team and, as with the Riverside shop, our goal with the design of the beach shop was to create a space that reflects the surrounding neighborhood. To accomplish this we gutted out an uninspired Starbucks and started from scratch. We worked with Content Design Group to create a bright and airy space with a refreshing color palette that brings to mind a Florida beach. Highlights of the space are its board and batten walls, stone countertops, custom powder-coated lighting, shaker shingles, a custom-built pastry case, again built by John at Shiloh Furniture Company, floor-to-ceiling windows on three of the four walls and, while not an architectural feature—no wi-fi. The shop is bright and comfortable and is reminiscent of all the great aspects of beach living in Florida without any of the kitsch. The beach shop is a completely different look from its Riverside counterpart but it accomplishes the same goal of being a reflection of it’s surrounding community.
Can you tell us about the gear at Bold Bean?
Both of our shops feature La Marzocco espresso machines (GB5 three group in riverside and Strada MP three group at the beach), Mazzer Robur E grinders, EK43’s for hand brewed coffee. All of our pastries come to us from Knead Bakeshop. Knead Bakeshop was our in-house baker for the past couple of years but they have grown out of the shop to open their own storefront. Adam Burnett is their proprietor and head baker. He is my brother, but I can say without bias that his baked goods top or stand up to anything out there. He honed his chops at Le Cordon Bleu in Portland and Nuvrei before moving back to the southeast.
What’s your approach to coffee?
We have just begun a direct souring program and have sourced 10 lots of our 20 or so offerings for this year directly. To meet the demand of an additional shop we moved the roasting from the back of our Riverside shop to a dedicated roasting facility down the road. This facility is in another 80-year-old building right next door to the Knead Bakeshop store front. Here, we are roasting on a San Franciscan SF-75 and an SF-1 for sampling and profiling. We are looking to open this space up to the public by the end of the summer for cuppings and brewing and roasting workshops but we still have some build-out to do before we do this. We also hope to have a very small cafe space in the roastery within the next year.
Photos by Josh Mauser.
Are you deep in the throes of a sweaty summer build-out? Let us know about it!
