“At Bellwood Coffee in East Atlanta Village, people can expect a more interactive experience,” says co-owner Joel Norman, who founded the company as a coffee cart in 2018 with his brother Charles and friends Tommy Keough and Ben Shaum. Shaum handles Bellwood’s roasting operations, while Keough designs the company’s branding, leaving the Normans to run the day-to-day business and do what they love: serving coffee.
The foursome eventually opened Bellwood as a coffee counter inside the now shuttered restaurant and market Jim Adams Farm and Table on Bolton Road in Riverside, selling the company’s beans at coffee shops around town.
Now, they’ve teamed up with friends Cary Smith and Libby Hockenberry of Ponce City Market plant store the Victorian, opening Bellwood coffee bar at the Victorian’s second location inside a century-old home near the Flatiron Bar in the heart of East Atlanta Village.
The sign outside reads, “Plants + Coffee”.
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The Victorian encompasses most of the Glenwood Avenue space, which features a separate cactus room with floor-to-ceiling windows.
Designer Alison Michaels-Fandel kept the walls white and used woods and other natural and textural elements to play up the lush colors of the plants in the shop. The Victorian x Bellwood Coffee is flooded with light from several large windows and skylights. Michaels-Fandel says she hopes the design entices people to linger in the space while they shop and enjoy their coffee.
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Located in the middle of the Victorian, the coffee bar itself features eight seats, with a few seats scattered throughout the shop. Additional seating can be found on the covered porch, with more seating at a communal wooden table and benches on the pebble-stone patio out front.
In addition to coffee and coffee and tea drinks — including a vegan horchata and cold brew concoction named for Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig and the iced honey-lime hibiscus-berry tea “Run the Jewels” — Bellwood also serves grab-and-go pastries.
Norman says days and hours will be limited as the Victorian x Bellwood Coffee gets up and running in the Village. Renovations on the original Bellwood Coffee location on Bolton Road continue, too, and should be completed this fall.
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Temporary hours for Bellwood Coffee: Wednesday - Sunday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Permanent Bellwood Coffee hours in the near future: Monday - Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
1336 Glenwood Avenue, Atlanta. bellwoodcoffee.com; thevictorianatlanta.com.