Newport coffee shop expanding into the space next door

Newport’s Carabello Coffee launched a Kickstarter campaign last month to raise $40,000 to purchase and renovate the next-door storefront, as well as its current space, for a new space totaling about 2,500 square feet. Since opening in 2013, Carabello has grown by about 80 percent over the past year.
 
By purchasing the building next door, owners Justin and Emily Carabello will be able to build a new roastery, training lab and slow bar. They also plan to add a larger kitchen, office and dry goods storage area.
 
“The slow bar in the new space will allow us to focus on brewing manually and put more of an emphasis on process and discussion,” Justin says. “It will be like a shop within a shop with two bars — one a social cafe devoted to curated items and signature drinks that we don’t currently offer, and the other will be a slow bar for coffee geeks.”
 
The slow bar, which will be located between the main café and roastery, will have limited hours at first to really focus on the education of coffee drinking.
 
“We’ve been able to introduce people to specialty coffee by doing small things like only brewing single cups in Clever Coffee Drippers after 11 a.m. and offering classic-sized espresso drinks, as well as Chemex brewing,” Justin says. “We’re able to talk to people about coffee and be a very approachable coffee shop.”
 
Carabello’s roastery will be moved to the prime spot in the building and be clearly visible from the sidewalk and the street. A new area will be designed for wholesale customer training, classes and staff cuppings, as well as work stations for customers who want to stay and work for a few hours.
 
The Carabellos are working with Work Architecture + Design, a smaller firm that specializes in historic adaptive reuse projects. Renovations will include gutting the current space and change the floor plan. Justin says the two buildings were separate but were joined together on the deed at some point. He plans to blow a hole in the brick wall that separates the two spaces and connect them internally.

“We hope our expansion will help to further economic development in the Monmouth Street business district,” Justin says.

The Kickstarter campaign ended Dec. 30 and beat its goal, raising over $42,000.

Carabello will remain open during the renovation process and hope to have both spaces fully operational by early fall.