Colorado Springs has been a loud voice in the “tiny house” movement, with August’s popular Tiny House Jamboree attracting national attention, and that’s about to grow as one of the first — if not the first — tiny-house coffee shops in the nation will call the city home. That’s according to Sprudge.com, which talked to Story Coffee Company. The new outfit is built on a 20-by-8-foot trailer and will offer a “fine dining” drink experience, according to Sprudge, in 160 square feet of space. The bar will be fit into six feet and be equipped with a custom La Marzocco Linea espresso machine, leaving 14 feet for around a dozen customers with seating on the deck.
The fascinating project is the work of Don and Carissa Niemyer and their business partners Brandon and Kelly Noffsinger, Sprudge writes, with the name coming from the combined states the foursome have traveled and the things they learned along the way.
“Between us, we and the Noffsingers have traveled to 45 states in the United States and visited every great coffeehouse we could find,” Don told the website. “We are deeply compelled by the stories of their coffees, and we want to honor them.”
Don and Carissa are former owners of Speedboat Coffee in Portland, and across their travels became enamored with spots like Onyx Coffee Lab in Springdale, Ark. The four partners are as enthusiastic about the minimalism of the tiny-house movement, and sustainable building like the burned-wood shou sugi ban process on exterior walls.
“The Niemyers bought the flat-bed trailer and began building from floor upwards in spring of 2015 …” Sprudge’s Emily McIntyre writes. “Once the cafe had reached ‘dried in’ state (walls up, roof on, windows and doors in, and waterproofed), the family went back on the road to Colorado Springs to finish the construction and begin the process of finding a location.”
We contacted Story Coffee for more information on location and opening dates, and will update readers as soon as we hear back. In the meantime, see photos of the tiny spot here.
