Cups of coffee from Beans and Cream at the Shops at Brickerton are snuggled in brown coffee cup sleeves hand stamped with “B&C Coffeehouse & Creamery” in black ink.
The coffee shop had previously served Seattle’s Best coffee, which meant every cup produced from the locally-owned establishment was branded with the chain logo.
Josh Gillis bought the coffee shop in mid-September and has decided to rebrand and take a more local approach to things by purchasing locally roasted coffee and new equipment and retraining his baristas.
This week, the shop received its new espresso machine and coffee grinder, and staff received training on how to make what they hope will be the best-tasting coffee in the oldest coffee shop in Columbus.
“We decided, when I took it over, we were going to try to do a more local approach to things,” Gillis said. “Increasing the quality of everything is the idea.”
Gillis, a Columbus native, has lived for the past 10 years in Louisville, Kentucky, which is where he learned of Sunergos.
He studied business at the University of Alabama before moving to Kentucky, where he got involved in store management.
“I’ve always wanted to do the coffee shop thing,” he said.
So, when Jeff Overstreet, third owner of Beans and Cream that opened in 2003, offered to sell to Gillis, he decided to come home.
New coffee
Gillis said the coffee shop is using up its last inventory of Seattle’s Best coffee and will completely shift to local roasts in about two weeks.
He said he will begin stocking espresso beans roasted by Sunergos Coffee in Louisville, Kentucky, and drip coffee from High Point Coffee Roasters out of New Albany.
This means Beans and Cream can have its own custom logo on its coffee cups. It also means fresher coffee, Gillis said.
“Here’s the kicker — Seattle’s Best is owned by Starbucks. So, technically, you’re serving Starbucks coffee,” he said. “When you’re doing stuff on a grand scale like that, when you get a bag of coffee from them, you have no idea how long it has been sitting in a warehouse until it gets to you.”
Gillis said his shop will stock the beans from Sunergos and High Point only one to two days after it has been roasted, meaning it’s as fresh as possible.
“Eventually, we’d like to get into our own roasting,” he added.
New equipment
But the coffee bean isn’t the only step toward making a better product, said Sunergos trainer Ryan Soeder.
The equipment is just as important.
Gillis purchased through Sunergos a new Nuova Simonelli espresso machine and Peak coffee grinder, which he said are some of the best on the market. The company also rebuilt the coffee shop’s existing espresso machine.
Gillis said the new grinder has no holding container that stores leftover grounds that lose freshness as they sit and wait to be used.
“It’s the freshest it can be,” he said. “There’s no holding time in that cell that could sit for hours or however long. It’s just straight from the bean to the cup.”
He said having more equipment will make service more expedient, and the shop will use part of the equipment for in-store customers and part for a drive-thru he plans to install in the spring.
Training
Soeder said new equipment and training go hand-in-hand to develop the best final product.
He trained the baristas on Tuesday, teaching them how to operate the new equipment for optimal taste.
The baristas, he said, have to know how much product to put into the machines and how long to brew them in order to hit that “sweet spot,” where the coffee isn’t too sour or too bitter.
“With coffee, freshness really is everything. It’s like fresh bread versus croutons. There’s a distinct difference between the two,” he said. “(At the same time) there’s a difference between how coffee tastes when it’s extracted well versus when care isn’t taken to taste the coffee and make adjustments.”
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