Success Brews for Blackbeard Coffee Roasters | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

    GREENVILLE, N.C. - Blackbeard Coffee Roasters is coming to Uptown Greenville this fall. The company, which has been distributing locally roasted coffee since 2015, will open a coffee shop at 203 East Fifth Street later this month.

    Owner Mike Fox said he's looking forward to creating a community space where people can gather to enjoy a cup of coffee, and to watch and learn how it's made. The shop will feature a central pour-over bar from which customers can see the process. It will offer fresh roasted coffee from around the world and all of the specialty coffee drinks customers expect.

    "It will be an interactive setup where you can see what we're doing, from roasting to preparing coffee," Fox said. "We want people to see and understand what goes into roasting and brewing."

    The company was created by a group of friends who noticed the lack of locally roasted coffee and decided to buy a roaster and some green coffee and try it themselves.

    "We signed up for the food truck event in 2015 and built the website the night before," Fox said. "Once we did that there was no turning back. We signed up for other events and people started asking us where our shop was."

    The coffee shop will employ 8-10 baristas and roasters to begin with, and possibly double that down the road. Fox said the location is ideal for being a part of the rejuvenation of Uptown Greenville.

    "It's a great location and a good size for us, just a block from campus," he said. "Coffee is one of those unique things that allows people to come together and creates community. I think it fits in with a lot of what other businesses are doing in Uptown Greenville, spaces where people can be together and do life."

    As a wholesale distributor, Blackbeard Roasters already has partnerships in place with local restaurants, cafes, and even offices and churches, and Fox said he also plans to collaborate with Uptown's new craft breweries, providing coffee for specialty batches of beer. The shop is coming together, with much of the equipment in place and the coffee bar built out, and Fox is eager to open the doors to Blackbeard's first customers.

    "The layout of our shop is built to allow the baristas to interact with customers," he said. "You'll be able to sit at the bar and watch your coffee being brewed right in front of you."

    For more information visit www.blackbeardroasters.com.

• Contact: Uptown Greenville
•     info@uptowngreenville.com