Cafe Intermezzo Preps for Expansion, Starting With Avalon

Alpharetta's Avalon development is the next destination for Cafe Intermezzo. After two years of planning, owner and creator Brian Olson hopes to open a new outpost at the mixed-use development in September 2016. Construction on the 70-seat cafe is slated to begin next month.

The forthcoming location joins the cafe's three current sites: Dunwoody, Midtown, and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. With 36 years of coffeehouse experience, Olson considered the development's distinction, tenant mix, and design before committing.

"The most prevalent demographics of our guests include the two strata of female and educated, both are prominent as well in the Avalon customer base," he said. "This reality has fueled our enthusiasm for the opportunity to build Cafe Intermezzo in this wonderful setting."

All Cafe Intermezzo locations aim to capture the essence of a 300-year-old European coffeehouse — just as Olson imagined he would create while visiting bakeries and coffeehouses across Austria and Germany.

"It is a step out of one's world of the moment into another time, another place," he said. "I became enthralled with the sense of communality each location possessed."

He became determined to bring a similar environment to Atlanta, making the new Alpharetta just the next step in a long-term plan. Olson envisions two or three more cafes in Atlanta, and then hopes to venture to Nashville and Charlotte.

"Café Intermezzo holds the good fortune of providing a consistent opportunity for guests to partake in the European coffeehouse experience any time of day and any day of the year," Olson said. "In tough economic times, people might reduce their dining-out budget, but still want to get out among others, and Café Intermezzo provides that opportunity."

— Eater Atlanta contributor Chelsey Derks