Taking the plunge
Abyss quickly becoming the neighborhood coffee shop
AMBLER » If you think falling into an abyss is a bad thing, you haven’t plunged into the welcoming Abyss filled with custom-roasted Colombian and dark Sumatra at the corner of Butler and Bethlehem pikes.
Owners Bruce Gunacti and Ismail Ipek hit the ground running when they took over the former Saxbys Coffee last spring, after initially taking ownership of an Abyss Coffee in Lansdale, which had also started out as a Saxbys.
In May, the Ambler Saxbys joined the growing Abyss Coffee family.
As Gunacti explained it, both Saxbys locations had broken their ties as franchisees of the national chain, when the Lansdale owner, wishing to continue the operation as an independent, reconstructed the letters of the Saxbys name on the sign — ditching the “x”— into Abyss.
After Gunacti decided to take on the Lansdale java joint with the vaguely mystical name, the Saxbys Ambler folks got in touch with him.
“They asked if we’d be interested in having a second shop,” said Gunacti, a Turkish immigrant .
“In the back of my mind I knew I always wanted to open something to do with a restaurant,” said the man who has toiled as a dishwasher, chef and restaurant manager and now also owns his own marketing agency, Cool Nerds Marketing. “I didn’t have to keep the name Abyss if I didn’t want to, but I did. I asked a couple of my friends and employees in my other business and they liked the name.”
Gunacti admitted that last fall when he was contemplating buying the Lansdale store, tucked away in a strip center at 401 S. Broad St., and looked at the numbers, “they weren’t great, but I accepted it as a challenge.”
With a menu makeover, the right management and consistency of service, he was sure he could turn things around in Ambler, a former donut shop, as well.
“I knew I did not want to be here every day,” said Gunacti, sitting at a table in the spacious but cozy and long-on-ambience Ambler shop. “But I was so happy to find managers I could depend on.”
To Valerie Gusoff, who manages the Ambler location, the name Abyss signifies the “best kept secret in Ambler.”
“You enter the Abyss and you realize it’s a wonderful place,” said Gusoff, who recalled former Saxbys customers mentioning the slow and not so engaging service.
“I was here when it was Saxbys once and I wasn’t overly impressed,” she said. “I know Bruce was determined to change that and bring back those customers. I had been out of Ambler for a while and then I came back and I fell in love with everything here at Abyss … The espresso was such high quality, the par-
faits, the sandwiches, the friendly staff.”
An engaging smile behind the counter is just as important as the coffee itself, Gunacti allowed.
“When you think about it, people who are coming in in the morning haven’t had their coffee and they’re not awake yet. They like to be greeted with a smile by someone who seems interested in serving them. You don’t find that everywhere, but it’s important that they get their smile here,” Gunacti said.
The already extensive breakfast menu, which features sandwiches, burritos and souffles — in the latter category Gusoff’s namesake features wheat toast, veggie cream cheese, bacon, tomatoes and cucumbers — will soon expand with the imminent arrival of a new grill that is expected to turn this neighborhood café into a bona fide breakfast spot.
“When you consider what we have to work with now in our kitchen, we’re not that limited. We have breakfast burritos, hash browns, pastries. So we have the ability to make all of these things, but we don’t yet have the ability to make traditional omelets or eggs over easy or home fries,” Gusoff said, adding that when the grill is installed this fall, customers will be notified by postcard, along with the new menu and coupons.
“We don’t have an actual date, as we are waiting for approval of a permit, but as soon as we get the permit is when installation will begin. It could be as soon as the end of this month. Ambler is mainly bars and dinner restaurants, but I think adding a breakfast place will really makes a difference,” said Gustoff, who noted that she is typically at the store 45 minutes before the official opening time for the handful of “early birds who come to get coffee. I always serve them and have it ready for the early risers.”
In addition to breakfast, the menu offers salads and paninis galore, including the poplar Tuscan Chicken, with chicken breast, fresh mozzarella, spinach, balsamic vinaigrette, olive oil, tomato, red peppers and artichoke.
Gunacti said that his strategy of buying food from a variety of vendors assures consistent quality.
“We buy from more than one vendor to make sure we have the freshest food possible,” he said.
“We have customers who come in for their latte in the morning, going on fitness runs … They’re in the community more than they are in Lansdale. Hours later they’re here getting a sandwich or salad. They say they would rather be doing work from here than home. Lansdale is walkable, obviously, but where we’re located there it’s just a different customer,” said Gusoff, who has been known to bring coffee out to folks in line at the drive-thru.
“I don’t want people to have to wait too long,” she said.
Gunacti nodded.
“You have to respect people’s time,” he said. “They’re trying to go somewhere. That’s why they’re in the drive-thru.”
Gunacti said he takes the star attraction, the coffee, seriously, and spent a few months deciding on his source before he settled on Chestnut Hill Coffee Co.
“We choose our coffee very well,” he said. “You go to most other places and they have a house coffee, dark coffee, Colombian, Sumatra. But our coffee right off the bat is Colombia for our house coffee, and our dark coffee is French Sumatra. With Chestnut Hill, we asked for different roasting options, so their Colombian is a little different than ours. I think ours is a little darker, and the same with the French Sumatra. It’s a different recipe.”
Gunacti said he’s seen a growing amount of overlap business between the Ambler and Lansdale locations, indicating that the brand is developing a following.
“The two shops are only eight miles apart,” he noted. “If people like us here in Ambler, I hope they seek us out in Lansdale, and the other way around too. We’re striving for consistency, so they will find the same quality at each location.”
Abyss Coffee is located at 30 S. Bethlehem Pike, Ambler.
The hours for both Ambler and Lansdale are Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
For more information, visit Abysscoffee.com.