The exterior of the redesigned downtown Portland location. Photo by Carly Diaz, courtesy of Stumptown Coffee Roasters.
It’s been a big end-of-year for Portland, Oregon-based Stumptown Coffee Roasters, which earlier this month reopened its redesigned downtown Portland location, and three days later made a splashy retail debut in Chicago.
As the company’s first Midwest outpost, the Chicago shop is inside the new Ace Hotel in the Fulton Market neighborhood in the West Loop, where hotel guests have access to amenities such as in-room guitars and record players with stocked LPs. The coffee company and the Portland-based hotelier have combined for other Stumptown openings in Portland, New York and New Orleans.
Stumptown at the Ace Hotel in Chicago. Photo by Carly Diaz, courtesy of Stumptown Coffee Roasters.
Stumptown said the café — designed in a collaboration involving local firm Grec Architects and the Los Angeles design studio Commune — extends the Bauhaus design theme throughout the hotel, and includes a custom leather bar and extensive tap selection.
Interestingly, the Chicago location is just 1.2 miles due east of the roasting headquarters of Intelligentsia Coffee, a company that often shares the same breath as Stumptown in conversions regarding pioneers of the “third wave” movement through the 2000s. Those conversations have also turned toward consolidation within the industry, as both companies were acquired by Peet’s Coffee in 2015. All three of those companies are primarily owned by the investment arm of the German billionaire Reimann family, JAB Holding Company.
Stumptown Chicago. Photo by Carly Diaz, courtesy of Stumptown Coffee Roasters.
Meanwhile, back in Portland, Stumptown has opened its redesigned downtown location, which has been running since 2003 and remains the company’s largest store. Designed in collaboration with the Portland creative agency Omfgco, the reenvisioned space includes additional seating, a large community area augmented by custom tile work and an undulating ceiling, and bar that attaches broken pieces of marble with gold-colored resin.
Stumptown downtown Portland. Photo by Carly Diaz, courtesy of Stumptown Coffee Roasters.
Stumptown Chicago is now open inside the Ace Hotel at 311 N. Morgan Street.
Stumtown downtown Portland is reopened at 128 SW 3rd Ave.
Nick Brown
Nick Brown is the editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine.
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