NEW TAMPA — Folks love their coffee. Especially good coffee.
Before the first cup was ever poured, the line stretched through Sprouts Farmers Market, past the hot food and sandwiches and meat and into the fruits and vegetables. By the time the ribbon was cut for Buddy Brew Coffee’s newest location more than 50 people were eagerly awaiting a cup.
The Tampa-based coffee chain has opened its full-service café tucked inside the Sprouts in The Villages of Hunter’s Lake plaza on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard in New Tampa, its second grocery store location after a similar rollout in Westchase that also drew a sizable crowd.
At the front of the line: Shani Jerez, a special education teacher at Cypress Creek High School in Wesley Chapel.
Jerez arrived at 7 a.m. for the 10 a.m. opening, hoping to be one of the first 25 to receive a giftbag as well as the first official drink served by the new location.
“I love Buddy Brew,” she said. “I’ve been to the one in Hyde Park, and I definitely wanted to be the first one here.”
Jerez had plans to show up much earlier, but she overslept. She still beat USF microbiology graduate student Lily McKnight by two minutes, she said smiling and holding her treasure: a Summer Sunburst Refresher, and a cinnamon latte.
For co-founders Dave and Susan Ward, the large turnout of loyal fans was another positive sign for their growing business.
“I think there’s something to a reveal that kind of gets people excited,” Dave Ward said. “It’s just, you know, for us validation that the brand is carrying, and that’s really important to us.
The new space takes over a former breakroom near the front of the Sprouts, retrofitted for the café. It’s part of a formula Buddy Brew has repeated since opening the original Kennedy Blvd. shop in south Tampa. The company now operates 10 cafes, most in south Tampa, including locations at USF and Tampa International Airport, with more on the way via its partnership with Sprouts.
Ward says of the 55 Sprouts stores in Florida, there’s roughly 25 that can be retrofitted to add a Buddy Brew café. The partnership has already announced eight more Sprout locations in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Sarasota counties.
“It’s a departure from how Sprouts typically does things, but they’re like, man, you guys are killing it, so you know, keep going with it,” he said.
Ward said his company’s mission from the start was to bring true specialty coffee to Tampa Bay, a market he said didn’t have it before the Wards evolved from A couple roasting coffee in the garage of their South Tampa home to business owners on Kennedy Boulevard in 2010.
While others offer gourmet or craft coffees, Ward said Buddy Brew serves up true “specialty” coffee, which is graded on 100-point scale and requires a score of at least 80 to qualify. Buddy Brew only buys beans that score 85 or better, sourced from regions near the equator.
However, Ward said Buddy Brew offers great coffee and specialty beverages without the pretention that can come with specialty shops.
“The best thing about coffee is you get to have it exactly the way you want it every single time,” Ward said.
Ward is also not shying away from the competition. The new location sits mere steps from an existing and well-trafficked Starbucks, something Ward said doesn’t worry him. He says convenience will always favor the bigger chain, but quality favors Buddy Brew. He doesn’t see his product as just another choice for consumers, he sees it as the choice.
“You don’t have to be a coffee aficionado to know that this cup is better than that guy,” Ward said. “Being next to a Starbucks is awesome because we will get a chunk of those customers.”
Ward said the goal at every new location, grocery store or stand alone, is the same: get the surrounding community invested enough that the shop starts to feel like theirs.
So while it may just appear to be a small café in the corner of an organic grocery store, the opening day celebration suggests it wants to be more.
“You go into any of our cafes, you see what our customers are doing in there,” he said. “They have taken ownership of the shop, and that, to us, is the greatest reward of all.”