Back in business
STORY AND SOIL, ONE OF FOOD & WINE’S ‘BEST COFFEE SHOPS IN AMERICA’ REOPENS IN ‘COFFEE CAPITAL OF CONNECTICUT’
In the “coffee capital of Connecticut,” coffee lovers have another stop to add to the itinerary. Hartford’s Story and Soil Coffee, located a short walk from the state Capitol Building at 387 Capitol Ave., has reopened after a monthslong renovation project that has expanded seating, added two coffee roasters and doubled the square footage. The beloved coffee shop celebrated its grand opening Wednesday morning with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam, with a coffee in hand, smiled after a few sips at the storefront he called his “neighborhood coffee spot.”
“We cut five other ribbons on coffee shops in this city,” Arulampalam said. “We’ve got this burgeoning coffee community here. This is truly the coffee capital of Connecticut. Right here, we are making some of the best coffee in the state.”
Story and Soil, which opened back in 2017 with just 384 square feet of space, only had seating for nine people. But now with the expansion, the coffee shop can seat 22 people with over 700 square feet of space in the building’s finished basement area.
“It feels like a giant exhale,” said co-owner Sarah Mccoy, who along with her husband Michael Mccoy and friend Michael Acosta, founded the coffee shop. “This is something we dreamed of for a while — a space where a lot more people can connect. We quickly outgrew this space after opening. So this feels like a place where our dream can now continue.”
“People who were new to the space or didn’t know what to expect almost felt like they were imposing when they walked into the old space,” Mccoy said. “Because you would order in the back and pick up your drinks in the front. It was kind of a reverse cycle. So while the seating is the biggest part, the space also allows for better flow for people to feel more welcomed and not so cramped.”
But despite the lack of seating for many years, the coffee shop continued to draw large crowds and was named one of Food & Wine’s “best coffee shops in America” in a survey back in 2019.
The husband-wife duo opened a second location of Story and Soil Coffee inside Wesleyan’s RJ Julia bookstore in Middletown in 2021 based off their success in Hartford. The Middletown location is larger, with over 1,000 square feet of dedicated dining space.
“The coffee community has really grown in Hartford. There weren’t a lot of coffee shops in the city when we started, now it’s much more robust,” Michael Mccoy said. “I’m glad that’s the case. Obviously it’s competition, but it’s also the community we wanted here. So I feel like we can take a little credit for that.”
The landlord of the building, Aaron Gill, secured a $50,000 matching grant from the city’s Hart Lift program back in 2021. The award-winning matching grant program helps transform vacant spaces and storefronts in the city. Story and Soil Coffee received $50,000 for their expansions.
“This is an exciting day,” Gill said. “When my wife and I purchased this building about a decade ago, this building had been vacant for over 10 years. No one lived here and this space was a blight on the neighborhood in every sense of the word. I had envisioned finishing this space off in this way for a long time. Without the Hart Lift grant, we wouldn’t be here today. We love this neighborhood and we’re happy to continue to invest here.”
Neighboring Capital Ice Cream has also undergone renovation work under the same Hart Lift grant. The ice cream shop, which sits adjacent to Story and Soil in the same building, also received $50,000 to expand and add indoor seating. Capital Ice Cream, which has seasonal hours between April and October, only had a few outdoor seats for the warmer months.
“Our renovation was a lot more extensive than Story and Soil, we had to do the entire layout of our upstairs floor,” said Capital Ice Cream owner Chantell Boissiere-kelly. “They have completed the downstairs renovation, but we are in the middle of completing the upstairs renovation. We hope to have that done soon.”
Boissiere-kelly said she expects the renovation work to wrap up sometime in May with about 29 indoor seats. Until the work is completed, the ice cream shop will remain closed, she said.
“Our space will be bigger, which is great, because we hope to be able to rent out that space for family gatherings and birthday parties,” Boissiere-kelly said. “We’re very excited about it. We’re very close to getting open again.”