A little coffee shop will make its big debut later this month during the St. Albert Snowflake Festival.
Little Darling Coffee is hosting its grand opening Nov. 29 to coincide with the St. Albert Snowflake Festival. The itty-bitty tea and coffee shop is an offshoot of and in the same storefront as the BreadLove Artisan Bakehouse at 46C St. Michael St., and has been unofficially open since Oct. 2.
Laura Rogerson, who owns BreadLove and Little Darling Coffee, said the idea for this shop started “percolating” about two years ago when she noticed how many of her customers wanted coffee to go along with their baked goods. After years of market research, she started work on converting a storage room in the bakery into a coffee shop last January.
“I didn’t want to open the coffee shop before we had a level of coffee that matched our baked goods,” Rogerson said.
Rogerson put out a call for a barista, and Luisa Suarez Bonilla walked in the door in response on Sept. 29. Rogerson asked her to make her a cup of coffee, and was so impressed with the results she hired her on the spot.
Suarez Bonilla said she comes from a family of coffee growers in Colombia and ran a coffee shop in Buenos Aries for seven years. A fan of plain espresso and americano, she said she came to St. Albert two years ago after she married a Canadian.
“It’s very similar to my town in Colombia,” she said of St. Albert, in that it is roughly the same size and has a very friendly community.
Rogerson credited Suarez Bonilla’s expertise and customer service for much of the shop’s success.
“The coffee knowledge she has allows her to create the perfect cup of coffee every single time,” Rogerson said, accounting for temperature, humidity, grinding and pouring technique, customer preference, and other factors.
Rogerson said the shop has proven to be a surprise hit and now hosts 70 to 100 customers a day.
“Every day, it gets busier and busier,” she said.
“We’re in mid-November and we’ve already doubled our sales from the last month.”
Rogerson said the coffee shop will be open for extra-long hours (7 a.m. to 9 p.m.) for the Snowflake Festival as part of its grand opening. They will also have prizes and tiny cinnamon buns for guests.
