Brick & Mortar follows craft brewery, winery lead

Jonathan Putnam is taking the coffee culture down the path paved by craft breweries and boutique wineries.

In a small commercial building on St. Louis Street – a reinvented motorcycle repair shop – Putnam and his team this week opened Brick & Mortar Coffee LLC to roast imported coffee beans and sell them wholesale.

That’s the bread and butter of the business, but the edges define the Brick & Mortar culture.

“The coffee culture is kind of catching up. It’s growing in the direction of the wine and beer culture,” Putnam said from behind a tasting bar with two taps for pouring nitro cold brew that would make Arthur Guinness proud.

At Brick & Mortar, cold-brewed coffee is stored in kegs, and the menu offers a three-course flight of the barista’s choice. Such elements are the products of a slowed-down coffee experience and attention to detail from the point of harvest to the consumer’s hand, he said.

“That long chain ends up in your cup, from grower to barista,” said Putnam, who is self-taught in what’s called the third wave of coffee.

The movement takes an artisanal approach and considers itself being to Starbucks what Starbucks was to Folger’s.

With funding from his investor-owner father, Dr. Wayne Putnam, of Carthage, the Putnams bought the former Chubby Customs LLC Harley-Davidson shop for $100,000 form owner Bill Eft and spent $200,000 to renovate and outfit the space with roasting and brewing equipment, as well as stock up on its green coffee bean inventory.

The Aug. 18 opening came nearly a year to the day of purchasing the building.

Jonathan Putnam said the startup offers consulting and training for small coffeehouses, and two clients are on board. Tiff’s Natural Market in Marshfield and Common Grounds in Strafford are in the process of opening.

Strafford natives Michelle Eden and Maggie Coppenbarger met the Brick & Mortar crew in spring 2013 at a business plan writing session at the Library Center. With their coffee shop and cafe concept in downtown Strafford now in full swing, the duo stopped in Brick & Mortar last week to buy a bag of Ampersand beans they’ll sell as their house blend. The variety is sourced from Huehuetenango, Guatemala.

“We let people private label,” said Phil Cook, Brick & Mortar’s operations director, removing the whole beans from a weigh scale. “It lets us be the nerds.”

Eden said they intend to create a community hub with the cafe, and the Brick & Mortar concept fits right in.

Putnam, who has 10 years of experience working at Dancing Mule Coffee Co. and Classic Rock Coffee, expects Common Grounds will order 30-60 pounds a month once it opens Aug. 30.

He said order volumes by small shops, once established, should range from 100-200 pounds a month.

Springfield coffee shops have gone a step further in the cultural trends by selling beer and wine by the glass. The owners of Mudhouse and Big Momma’s created separate businesses to serve alcoholic drinks – MudLounge and Q Enoteca wine bar, respectively – and three years ago, The Coffee Ethic on Park Central Square received its liquor license.

Co-owner Tom Billionis said Coffee Ethic has seven beers on tap and has partnered with Scotch & Soda to mix coffee cocktails.

In early August, Billionis also added a nitro cold brew tap.

“It’s been gaining steam around the country. It just hasn’t gotten to Springfield until recently,” he said.

The nitrogenated coffee is served weekly until the keg runs out, he said. Then, it takes two or three days to carbonate the next batch.

“We have a lag time between kegs of it, but we’re working on some ways around that,” Billionis said.

Coffee Ethic has served Topeka, Kan.-based PT’s Coffee since it opened, and Billionis said he’s not pursuing the Brick & Mortar brand.

While cups of coffee at the startup roaster’s tasting bar are available for purchase, Putnam said Brick & Mortar is not going after the retail market.

“The idea is tasting a bunch of different coffees and sending you out the door with a pound of coffee – kind of like at a winery,” he said, noting retail prices start at $10 per pound, packaged in reusable mason jars.[[In-content Ad]]