Valor Espresso of Atlanta has a type of small enterprise espresso tales that simply places a smile in your face—from Kickstarted beginnings to 2 thriving cafes, run by a small group of espresso lovers with an progressive strategy to cafe tradition and a selective eye for gear. On this newest Sprudge Map Highlight we’re taking a better take a look at Valor’s second location, within the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody.
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Sprudge Maps is introduced by La Marzocco and Pacific Barista Sequence.
As informed to Sprudge by Riley Westbrook.
Introduce your self to our readers—inform us about your cafe!
Valor was began again in 2016 on my own (Riley Westbrook), Ethan Rivers, and Ross Walters. We had been all 19 on the time so we didn’t have a greenback to our title, so we ran a Kickstarter for $10,000 and constructed out a cell espresso bar, which we used to cater weddings, movie units, and enterprise occasions. We had been determined to get our enterprise going as a result of we noticed such a gap available in the market for a service-driven, actually hospitable third wave cafe. We set our mission to “Uplift Individuals By Espresso” and did no matter we might to make one thing occur.
In January 2018, we landed in a semi-permanent pop-up in Downtown Alpharetta (a historic metropolis in Metro Atlanta). By August 2019, we’d opened our personal brick-and-mortar retailer within the house straight subsequent to the place we’d been popping up for the previous 12 months and a few change. Our Alpharetta cafe was the primary true expression of our model (i.e. we had our personal house), and we haven’t regarded again.
That brings us to April of 2023 and the opening of our new Dunwoody cafe. This cafe is about 3 times the scale of our first, permitting some respiration room, plus a service format we’ve all the time needed to have—a central bar, made up of three islands, permitting our Pit Crew (what we name our baristas) to be the thermostats of the house, setting an lively and welcoming setting for our visitors. We love the tradition of a busy, up-beat bar, and we take into account Valor to be far more alongside these traces than a sleepy espresso home.
What gear do you utilize in your store?
Our new cafe incorporates a Modbar AV. We went with the Modbar as a result of it allowed us to utterly separate espresso and steaming stations, as we sometimes have one Crew Member pulling pictures and brewing matches/teas, whereas one other finishes drinks (steams or builds an iced beverage). This has actually revolutionized our movement, and we’re already planning to retrofit our first cafe with the identical system.
Different gear contains Anfim SCODY II espresso grinders, Mahlkönig EK43 for batch, pour-over, and single origin espresso grinding, Curtis G4 brewer for batch brew, and Curtis Seraphim for pour-overs.
Which roaster or roasters do you serve?
We roast all of our personal espresso at our Roasting Headquarters in Roswell, GA. We began roasting in July 2018 and opened our HQ in December 2020 after renting different roasters’ areas as much as that time. We roast on a Loring S15 Falcon.
What’s the neighborhood like the place you’re positioned? What’s another cool stuff close by?
Dunwoody, like most of the cities in Metro ATL, is certainly up-and-coming. Clearly Atlanta is simply down the highway, however within the space you could find nice meals, equivalent to Rocket Farms/Ford Fry’s Tex-Mex spot Superica and our favourite burger joint Village Burger. We expect we’re in a extremely nice a part of the world since you’re only a brief freeway drive away from wonderful hikes and views of the Appalachian Mountains, a world class sports activities venue, or the unimaginable meals sprinkled all all through the Atlanta and metro space.
What’s one thing cool or distinctive about your cafe you need of us to know?
Perhaps not particularly with regard to our cafe, however our enterprise mannequin:
Once we began our enterprise, we anticipated to open a restaurant within the metropolis of Atlanta the place specialty espresso was already far more understood, however, largely attributable to the place alternative led us, our first cafe landed in a suburban metropolis with a a lot completely different demographic than we had been initially anticipating. However this made us press into one in every of our values of Excellence and Empathy, together with our imaginative and prescient of matching the highest 1% of espresso with the highest 1% of service. We’re coping with a ton of people that aren’t actually within the Gesha selection we is likely to be providing on pour-over, and would reasonably simply have a extremely wonderful latte with a home made syrup. So we provide each. We actually attempt to tailor to the gang who we will count on will stroll via our doorways, given the realm, whereas nonetheless serving up some wonderful espresso choices that you just’d count on from a cool cafe in a cool metropolis.
Is there a neighborhood group or charity you’d prefer to shout-out as a part of this function?
We launch 5 seasonal blends all year long, of which $1 from every field offered goes to a selected charity depending on the season. Certainly one of our favorites is Beloved Atlanta, a company that helps and helps free girls from pressured prostitution.
Thanks!
Need your cafe featured in a Sprudge Maps Highlight? Register your store for Sprudge Maps, our user-driven compendium of espresso outlets across the globe. It’s utterly free. Join in the present day!
Sprudge Maps is introduced by La Marzocco and Pacific Barista Sequence.
Photographs by Valor Espresso, used with permission
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