Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Farmhouse coffee shop opens in Downingtown
Husband and wife hope new business puts buzz in borough
DOWNINGTOWN » The owners of Farmhouse, the borough’s snazzy new coffee shop, said they opened Thursday to give the borough residents a cozy place to drink coffee together.
“We believe that Downingtown really needed a coffee place where you could go get a delicious cookie or a muffin,” said Dana Petrizzio, founder and owner of The Farmhouse. She owns the business with her husband, Pete Petrizzio.
The café has an open space with 60 seats and there is a private room that businesses could rent out for a half day or day as a workspace or for a meeting. The café has WiFi and that private room has a TV and a wireless printer for people who are doing work over a cup of coffee. This room even has sliding barn doors for privacy while working.
The Petrizzios said the coffee shop is for families as well as for professional organizations and employees to gather. Prior to opening, they received positive feedback about the building and were welcomed to the neighborhood by people who said they were excited to try their products.
“The support that Downingtown showed us validated that this was the right place to go,” Dana Petrizzio said. “We could have gone anywhere. We love this town and we believe in it.”
They’ve been lovingly renovating the nearly 4,000-square-foot building since last summer. Prior to starting the renovation work, the previous abandoned property required some other work after the couple purchased it in September 2015.
“It needed a lot of love. It was a bigger project than we anticipated. It was a longer process than we anticipated,” Dana Petrizzio said. “I hope that when customers walk in that door that they understand why it took so long (to open) and see what the building looked like then to what it is now.”
“It came a long way,” Pete Petrizzio added.
The interior was inspired by Dana Petrizzio wanting to own farmland and she wanted the shop to look like a farmhouse, hence its name. Farmhouses can be trendy, she said, and cozy.
“I wanted it to have all of the elements that you’d see in a farmhouse,” she said about the items on the walls, the barn-like wood on the walls and the wooden floor. “We wanted it to be classy. It’s very Chester County-like. It’s cozy and that’s what we wanted.”
She said they don’t regret the year and a half wait to open the shop to “bring our vision to life.” She said they hoped that they would have a busy first day and they were pleasantly surprised with how busy they were in selling coffee and baked goods. She hopes it is a future vision of what the business will be like.
“It was great. We sold so many bakery items today, I couldn’t believe it. We sold a lot of coffee and espressos. The expresso machine was jumping for hours,” Dana Petrizzio said. “We sold out of everything which was fantastic.”
She called it the “perfect day” with so many customers. Pete added that customers lined up outside the shop to wait in anticipation before they opened.
The Petrizzios work at the shop with their five employees. On their first seven-hour day they were assisted by their daughter, Alexis, and Dana’s mom, Diana LaBruna.
“It was a family affair today,” Dana Petrizzio said.
The Petrizzios also own the property next door and have several options they are considering for it, such as a bakery with a gift shop. Dana added that they want to learn what the community demands are before they begin their next project. Currently they bake onsite, which includes signature chocolate chip cookies, scones, muffins, brownies and crostata (small sweet and savory pies) and more.
This was the “soft opening” for the coffee shop at 115 West Lancaster Avenue in Downingtown Borough. The shop will be open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. now through Saturday, then close for the July 4 holiday and reopen late next week. The owners are planning a grand opening. Visit Ginger Rae Dunbar’s blog at FirefighterGinger.blogspot.com.