Hurst’s city-owned coffee shop helps revive a neighborhood
Shane Patterson can’t stop talking about his first job working with the baristas at a newly opened business, simply called The Coffee Shop.
Patterson, a senior at Hurst L.D. Bell High School, participates in the culinary arts program and now helps create the lattes and iced mochas at the shop, which opened several weeks at 420 W. Pipeline Road.
Patterson’s favorite creation is a butter pistachio latte on the “secret menu.”
“It’s been very nice being in an environment of being on a job and talking to a lot of people,” he said.
The Coffee Shop’s is Saturday, May 2, with live music and other activities for customers.
Bringing a vacant building back to life
The Coffee Shop is the brainchild of Hurst economic development director Chris Connolly, who saw an opportunity to renovate a vacant building, home to a donut shop that closed in 2019.
Hurst purchased rights of way when Pipeline Road was widened. One of the properties was the dilapidated Val Oaks Shopping Center, Connolly said.
Connolly said Val Oaks was demolished, but there was another parcel that came with the shopping center purchase. It included the donut shop, built in 1969, and a family-owned restaurant, Olivos Tortilla Factory.
Hurst formed a partnership with Olivos and sells breakfast tacos at The Coffee Shop.
Last year, Connolly said Hurst began renovating the former donut shop. Workers tore out asbestos and replaced rotting rafters after water “poured in” because of a flat roof..
“It became a complete renovation down to the studs,” he said.
“My job as economic development director is to try to fill empty buildings. In-fill is always a challenge with an older building,” Connolly said.
A survey of Hurst residents showed that many wanted a sit-down coffee shop in the older part of town, Connolly said.
“It is difficult to get a chain to come and put roots down, but we got this opportunity,” he said.
Connolly said he got bids for the renovation work from businesses that are members of the Hurst-Eulesss-Bedford Chamber of Commerce, and volunteers also stepped in to help, as did nonprofits, including 6Stones.
The funding for renovating the former coffee shop came from rent from the Val Oaks Shopping Center tenants before Hurst decided to demolish the buildings.
The project cost around $175,000.
No tax dollars were used, he said.
Connolly plans to repay the city with proceeds from coffee sales.
Partnership with Hurst-Euless-Bedford school district
Connolly said he approached school officials after a business owner told him about the successful partnership working with special education students. He met with Superintendent Joe Harrington and other administrators.
“There was just an incredible amount of buy-in from the district and superintendent to make this happen,” Connolly said.
Architecture students from the Buinger Career Academy helped design the coffee shop, and the city is working with students in the culinary arts program and special education students in a transition program called Moving in to Adult Roles and Communities (MARC).
Students who graduated from high school but still have transition plans are in the MARC program, said Jessica Jax, a teacher in the school district.
Students learn “life skills” such as going to the grocery store, cooking and cleaning, she said.
They also work on skills that will help them get jobs, she said.
“Now, we have this wonderful coffee shop where we’ve been bringing in students. The exciting thing is that they (Hurst) want to hire our students, which was the missing link for us,” she said.
Jax said students in the MARC program spend part of their mornings at the coffee shop learning how to greet customers, how to properly wash dishes and take on other tasks such as how to make coffee drinks and stock the pastry cases.
Aarohan Aryl, 19, who is in the MARC program, said he is learning from his experience of spending time at The Coffee Shop.
Meeting customers is one of his favorite activities.
He is also learning other skills such as cleaning the bathrooms.
“I like helping the managers and the staff members,” Aryl said.
Aryl said he talked to his parents about the possibility of working at The Coffee shop once he finishes with the MARC program.
Hiring baristas
Connolly said a “fun” part of opening the coffee shop was hiring the baristas.
Connolly said he was impressed with their knowledge of the science behind the different types of coffees and the various methods for creating the latte and espresso drinks.
Sarah Guyote, who grew up in Hurst and graduated from L.D. Bell, said she spent years working in the service industry and in the corporate world and saw the job posting for a barista supervisor on Facebook.
“I love the service industry. I love food service, but I also really love the community oriented nature and just the opportunity to invest back, both in the city and in the community and in the students that work here,” Guyote said.
During it’s “soft opening” Guyote said the line stretched out the door, and The Coffee Shop already has its group of regular customers.
Church groups and business owners are having meetings there.
Guyote described the partnership between the city and school district as “brilliant.”
Meanwhile, Patterson said he will attend the Culinary School in Fort Worth after he graduates, and that he is getting valuable experience at The Coffee Shop.
“I’d like to own my own restaurant,” Patterson said.
“That would be really cool someday to have my own menu in the culinary world.”