COUPLE PLANS TO OPEN BIGGBY COFFEE IN DAYTON

Their first Biggby Coffee location will be at The Flats at South Park.

Jeff and Laynae Meyer of Kettering say they fell in love with Biggby Coffee and its shops’ environment, coffee and family atmosphere while living in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“We swore that when we returned home to Dayton to be with family that we would someday bring Biggby to Dayton, (and now) that time has come,” Jeff Meyer told this news outlet.

The husband-and-wife team are now the local franchise owners of Biggby Coffee, and they have signed a lease to open their first Dayton-area location between downtown Dayton and the University of Dayton’s campus.

But their plans extend well beyond that first store. Jeff Meyer said he and his wife intend to open three or four more Biggby Coffee shops across the region over the next 2½ years.

“Laynae and I are both multi-generational Daytonians, and we are committed to be part of the resurgence of our downtown community and neighborhood,” Meyer said. “It is our absolute intention to open more locations in Dayton and surrounding areas. We plan to have four to five opened in 30 months.”

The first new coffee shop will be located in The Flats at South Park, a new mixed-use project coming to the 400 block of Warren Street south of downtown and north of UD. Biggby Coffee will occupy a 1,505-square-foot end-cap space that will include a drive-through window. Plans call for hiring 12 to 15 full- and part-time employees and to be open seven days a week. The new shop could open as soon as March of 2019.

“The Flats was the perfect location to introduce Biggby to Dayton,” Meyer said.

The project offers 10,500 square feet of street-level commercial space. Cassano’s Pizza has signed a lease to occupy 2,000 square feet and plans to move its existing Brown Street restaurant to the new development, city records indicate.

“We are excited to bring this new tenant to the market,” developer Greg Thompson said Thursday in an Oberer release. “With this announcement, and Cassano’s Pizza currently under construction, the retail space is gaining momentum.”

East Lansing, Mich.-based Biggby Coffee was launched in 1995 and now has 275 locations open or under contract in 10 states. Most of its Ohio locations are in the Toledo/northwest Ohio area, although a shop in Loveland, north of Cincinnati, is listed as “coming soon” on the company’s web site. Contact this reporter at 937-2257355 or email Mark.Fisher@coxinc. com.