There was no advertising beyond a mention on Facebook and word of mouth, and yet hundreds of people turned up at Sparkroot Coffee Bar + Fare for its quiet opening on Monday.
They ordered the housemade bars and pressed cheese sandwiches, and lingered over Souvia teas and P&H sodas. They plugged in their laptops, tapped into the free Wi-Fi and gazed down from the mezzanine on to an exceptional view of downtown.
But the real draw was the coffee, the much-ballyhooed, reverentially exalted Blue Bottle Coffee that you couldn't find outside of the San Francisco Bay Area except at a single coffee shop on Berry Street in Brooklyn, N.Y. Until Monday, that is.
Why the fuss? Blue Bottle Coffee is made by the cup in individual drips from beans that are roasted and consumed inside of three days. The company website says this is the only way to experience coffee at its absolute freshest.
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Which could explain the crowds at Monday's Sparkroot opening.
"It's been amazing, like overwhelming," owner Ari Shapiro said in the midafternoon, crediting the coffee for drawing in a steady stream of customers from the time he opened the shop at 7 a.m. Monday until late into the afternoon.
"The food has been flying. We ran out of bread and stopped doing sandwiches a couple hours ago," he said.
Sparkroot, at 245 E. Congress St., can seat 70 inside. There also are plans for a patio area.
Because of the Blue Bottle Coffee's popularity, Shapiro decided to keep Monday's opening low-key.
"I don't know if it's just word of mouth or what," said Shapiro, who also is the founder of the 10-year-old popular Xoom Juice chain. "I purposely didn't do a grand opening because I was afraid we'd get slammed."
Sparkroot will be open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
