Specialty Coffee Retailer is a publication for owners, managers and employees of retail outlets that sell specialty coffee. Its scope includes best sales practices, supplies, business trends and anything else to assist the small coffee retailer.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/49395
Baruno moved in—is closed off with a chunk of an antique bank teller's booth. Most of the walls are painted, though one particularly weathered section was leſt as it was, with faded, peeling red paint. NORTHWEST PACIFIC Johnny Picasso's Coffee and Art Bar Anacortes, Wash. A big, cavernous former dairy barn might sound like a bad place for a coff eehouse, but John Archibald turned it to his advantage. His coff eehouse, Johnny Picasso's Coff ee and Art Bar, sits in a fi shing village of about 15,000 people on Fidalgo Island off Washington's coast. It's in the Old Town district, and like many nearby buildings, his is about 100 years old. It's a big location, but it's not all "We wanted to transfer the feel of the building," Baruno says. "We found it like that and leſt it as it was." Th e second story's wood fl oors are complemented by roughly hewn planks cut from pallets from a nearby business and glued to the walls. Th e third fl oor— regulars call it the "library"—is full of comfy couches, armchairs and shelves full of books. One Shot has been in the location for about a year, though it was in its previous location—luckily adjacent to the current one, so no clientele was lost in the move—for fi ve years. Th e renovations took eight months and cost about $20,000, plus $10,000 to get a permit to put tables on the sidewalk and installing a $20,000 sprinkler system. "It was quite expensive with all the hoops we had to jump through with the city," she says. It was worth it, though, since she bought the location, Baruno says. Surrounded in homes and sitting only a block from the new Piazza, a fashionable shopping area modeled aſt er the Italian version, the location has nothing but potential. dedicated to the dining room, which takes up about 750 square feet. Instead, Archibald keeps a separate room for art lessons and other community art projects. Th is makes Johnny Picasso's one of a gathering places for his community. People like the old look and feel of his building, he says, but it took a lot of work to get the building ready for that. "It's nice to have that old feel," Archibald says. "It's kind of quaint, but it needed a lot of upgrading." Aſt er it was a dairy farm, it was an auto repair shop, then a furniture store, then a travel agency and a retail shop, but it was never a coff eehouse—or anything that off ered foodservice. "When we fi rst got in here, the plumbing, electrical, the modern conveniences, just weren't there," he says. Getting the plumbing up to code was the biggest challenge, because it was set up to accommodate an auto shop, not a restaurant. "Now we have 20 or 30 customers using the bathroom and an espresso machine running," he says. "It just didn't support all that." Luckily, Archibald has a knack for fi xing things. He did many of the upgrades himself, saving a lot of money. He fi xed the plumbing for about $2,500, upgraded the electric work for $5,000, 30 | December 2011 • www.specialty-coffee.com and added mood lighting for $2,000. Th e cost and work was worth it, because he's in a more visible location on a main road, and his business grew 30 percent almost immediately aſt er moving there. "We moved to a prime location," he says. MIDWEST Flying M Coffee Garage Nampa, Idaho Like Johnny Picasso's, Flying M's building was an auto shop. Unlike Picasso's, it still looks just like one. Owners Kevin and Lisa Myers wanted to keep the Googie look of the old roadside auto shop, so they changed very little. Th ey even called the place Flying M Coff ee Garage. People come from all around the area to see the place, Kevin Archibald says. "Everybody loves it. It kind of reminds them of old California roadside architecture," he says. Th e 6,000-square-foot shop sits on a main drag in Nampa, Idaho, lined with trees and mom-and-pop shops selling furniture, carpet, glass. Th e shop's dining area was once the sales fl oor for auto supplies. Now, the fl oor-to-ceiling windows let light pour onto an area that seats about 150. A