In the early years of Build-Outs, this feature series was strictly a domestic affair. But now here in our astonishing 12th season of the feature series, each week during the Build-Outs season brings us a new globetrotting look into new coffee bars around the planet, recently opened or under construction in the year 2025. For today’s entry we’re in Chennai, on India’s southeastern coast, where a new coffee bar is under construction called Eventide Coffee.
The 2025 Build-Outs of Coffee is sponsored by Pacific Barista Series, La Marzocco, Ceado, and Dona.
As told to Sprudge by Alvin Chris Daniel.
For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?
Eventide Coffee is a specialty coffee brand that works on sourcing coffee directly from farmers in an ethical way and shares the story with the people with utmost transparency. We are in the pursuit of doing everything from scratch—from our puff pastries, to syrups, to home made pastas. We used it as a simple way of organic marketing by sharing our whole construction process in a series called “cafe from scratch” on our Instagram page @eventidecoffee
While the specialty coffee market is growing fast in India, people of Chennai are rooted in our own type of coffee (South Indian Filter coffee). While there is one part of Chennai’s young crowd intrigued about specialty coffee, it’s our mission with Eventide is to be more approachable to newer coffee enthusiasts and help them see the world of coffee in its true light. I also own a coffee page called @melowshot on Instagram which shares the same mission of making people fall in love with specialty coffee.
Can you tell us a bit about the new space?
Our space has a lot of inspiration from a very minimal Japanese style. We also made sure to keep up with spatial branding of our brand name Eventide—the time of evening sunset, where we play with elements of natural light through skylight and a completely transparent glass facade. It’s built with an intention to give people a place of calm. Our coffee shop is also planned in a way to have high ceilings, spacious seating, and a great co-working/community space where people get to join in and be part of a great coffee community.
What’s your approach to coffee?
Our approach to coffee is to be as transparent, sustainable while also being approachable to the customers. We find a way to keep things easy and simple for people who aren’t used to specialty coffee while also making sure we do things the right way by giving people who are interested in more details such as the traceability of coffee and so much more.
Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?
We focus on keeping things small to start with. We have a La Marzocco Linea Micra and a Decent Espresso, a pour-over counter, a hard tank cold brew machine and three different grinders: Fiorenzato for our house espresso, Bentwood Vertical 63 for our single dosing our manual brews and espressos, and a retail grinder. We also do contract roasting so we have a Nucleus Link sample roaster to cup our coffees before we source them.
How is your project considering sustainability?
We are finding ways to integrate waste coffee puck in our kitchen by making pralines and also teaming up with a sustainable local ayurvedic skincare brand to help us build a coffee waste exfoliate hand wash to sell in our merch as well as keep it in our cafe wash areas.
What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?
We are planning to open by end of July 2025.
Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?
We are working with a great architectural studio called Billboards, who have helped with the whole project, both with the architectural designs as well as our branding. Another person we love is a potter called Komala Harika, who runs a very intentional and passionate pottery called Hana Studios. Who has helped us design beautiful cups with perfect curves to keep up with the science of elevating aroma and taste in our cups
Thank you!
The 2025 Build-Outs of Coffee is sponsored by Pacific Barista Series, La Marzocco, Ceado, and Dona.
