Solar panels atop the new Combs’ Coffee Roastery in Gainesville, Texas. All images courtesy of Combs’ Coffee.
An unlikely specialty coffee complex has emerged in the small city of Gainesville, Texas. Combs’ Coffee has converted an 8,500-square-foot Coca-Cola bottling plant into a fully solar powered coffee and cacao roastery, quality control and training facility, and green coffee repository.
Combs and partners are also now the owners of the entire 5-acre lot on which the building stands, including some 60,000 square feet of building space. Straight north of Dallas off I-35 near the Oklahoma border, the site also includes an original 19th-century power plant, ice house, creamery, flour mill and scale house.
The new Wildflyer Coffee shop at 3262 Minnehaha Ave. in Minneapolis. Wildflyer Coffee homepage photo.
Though the perils of 2020 have grounded coffee shops all over the United States, Minneapolis-based Wildflyer Coffee is ending the year in a joyful soar.
The youth-focused, nonprofit specialty coffee purveyor has officially opened in a former Peace Coffee shop in the Longfellow neighborhood on the city’s south side.
Wildflyer Coffee Founder and Executive Director Carley Kammerer told DCN that the organization had intended to open in March 2020, but then you-know-what came around.
“Overall, since COVID hit, the uncertainly made it hard to plan well,” Kammerer said. “In the Spring, especially, our first location fell through and we had to put everything on hold. How were we to carry on our mission when we rely on retail when suddenly that was not viable?”