Though it’ll still be a while before
Boop de Boom Coffee Lounge officially opens at in a renovated Creston neighborhood storefront, owners Lindsey Ruffin and Cailin Kelly are excited for plans to bring a much-needed presence to a neighborhood they’ve grown to love.
Kelly, who owns
Creston Brewery alongside her husband and two other partners, have spent a lot of time getting to know the neighborhood where she grew up, and said an old-school coffee house seemed high on the list of resident needs.
“We heard a lot of neighbors and business owners talk about the need for a coffee shop in the area,” says Kelly, who began drafting a plan for a new coffee house shortly thereafter.
With a proposal in place, Kelly took the idea her friend and colleague of over three years, Lindsey Ruffin, with whom she’d connected through mutual work with both the
Eastown Community Association and the organization
Well House. The name Boop de Boom came from the pair’s mutual love of funky music and things, representative of the larger aesthetic goals of their new shop.
“The name is fun and brings to mind jazzy funky music and fun,” Kelly says. “That's the type of vibe we want to create.”
In line with a larger, national trend of coffee houses serving alcoholic beverages alongside traditional coffee menus, Boop de Boom’s new menu will feature not only coffee classics, but also offer a limited selection of beer and wine. However, the plan is still to craft coffee-centric cocktails like Irish coffees and Hot Totties to help keep the shop’s focus, first and foremost, on creating a comfortable gathering place that feels just as cozy and warm as the coffee shops they both remember growing up.
“I just remember when I was in high school going to coffee shops and feeling very comfortable and more of the decor and atmosphere felt more organic, while the new trend seems to be a more streamlined design,” Kelly says. “We want to bring it back old school and make it more funky and bohemian, make it comfortable enough that you want to stay and hang out for a while.”
Located in a 1,700-square-foot space at 1553 Plainfield St. NE, they found the new building through its owner, Jeremy Stokes.
“{Stokes] just talked about how cool it would be to have a coffee shop there, which is part of why we decided on that location,” Kelly says. “Plus, it’s right across from the brewery and right there in the heart of the neighborhood… and with (Jeremy) as our contractor, as well, we know he’ll help us create our vision and add unique funky flair.”
Still in the early stages of working with the planning commission to hammer out planning details and paperwork logistics -- including applying for a liquor license and proper permitting -- plans for Boop de Boom’s official grand opening are in late summer or early fall of 2018, though Kelly says they expect to go before the planning commission sometime in the next month or two for final approval on the space.
Until then, Kelly says they’ll continue to work on renovating the interior space and listening to their Creston neighbors for help in shaping the final product, with the ultimate goal always being to bring something valuable to a deserving community.
“We love this neighborhood… it’s such a diverse neighborhood socioeconomically and racially, with a lot of young families, a lot of young artists living here. I feel like it’s still got a historic feel and it hasn’t changed a ton in the past few years,” she says.
“We are really excited to bring something that is much desired to the neighborhood and we’ve met with neighbors at Creston Neighborhood Association that have given us lots of great ideas for what they’d like to see in a coffee shop and we hope to just really make a community gathering space, a place that everyone in the Creston Neighborhood can go to where it feels like home.”
Visit
Boop de Boom Coffee Lounge on Facebook to learn more or stay in the loop with its progress leading up to opening later this year.
Written by Anya Zentmeyer, Development News Editor
Images courtesy of Boop de Boom Coffee Lounge
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