Sip Coffee & Cocktails, 806 Alger St. SE, an attractive addition to the ever-changing cityscape along the Eastern Avenue corridor, will open its doors to coffee drinkers Wednesday, Oct. 26, at 7 a.m. Later this fall, the cocktails will start flowing.
The café/bar is located at the intersection of Alger and Eastern, in a walkable district, with a parking lot behind the business.
Area residents were buzzing about the impending soft opening at neighboring Brass Ring Brewery:
“Sip Coffee & Cocktails recently put up a really cool neon sign. I posted a picture on a neighborhood Facebook group and I got over 100 likes,” said Stephanie Carranco, 33, who has lived in Alger Heights all of her life.
Sip Coffee & Cocktails will serve Bold and Gritty brand coffee in its pour overs, French presses and espresso drinks. It will also serve nitro cold brew coffee and small bites that co-owner Jon Frantz referred to as “morning carbs.” When the bar opens there will be light faire such as charcuterie boards, he said.
The space was custom built and designed with both a morning and nighttime ambiance in mind, for example:
“All of our lights are on dimmers,” Frantz said.
The coffee/cocktails concept is the brainchild of Jonathan Farman and Jon Frantz who own Urban Jonny’s, a hair salon in the same building (which the pair recently purchased). Investor, Jonathan Jelks, of Ambiance GR Kitchen & Lounge, Motu Lakeshore Wine Bar (and a bevy of other businesses) is a strategic partner in the endeavor, Farman said.
“We’ll have a coffee shop by day, with laptops and people chilling. We’ll close for a couple hours and come back at night with different music playing and the lights dimmed,” said Farman, who will be responsible for the day-to-day operations until he has employees who are capable to do it without him.
Farman is also President of the Business Association for Alger Heights, which is planning other improvements to the area, like “greening up” all the concrete.
“It’s an exciting place to invest in right now,” he said. “We have this openness to listen to what folks want. We’re a community based business opening up in a great community. I’m there for the first (several) months rain, shine sleet, snow. I’ll have a sheet next to me, taking notes on what people want.”
No doubt people in the area will help it develop. The crowd at Brass Ring Brewery was ecstatic and pleased to learn of their new neighbor’s opening, even offering parking tips to those who come in from other parts of town.
“Alger Heights is so welcoming of small businesses…when we see construction or notice a business in the works, we get excited,” said Carranco who shared that churchgoers tend to fill up the parking lot behind Sip Coffee & Cocktails and Brass Ring Brewery on Sundays. “It’s reciprocal, people also park in the church parking lot,” she said.
Sip Coffee & Cocktails initial hours of operation will be limited to begin with: Monday- Saturday, 7 a.m. – 3 p.m. When the establishment’s liquor license is rubber stamped in mid-November the owners will reassess.
“Maybe we will do a Sunday brunch or Mimosas. We have the space to grow in a lot of different directions. It all goes back to that tally sheet I’m creating,” Farman said.
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