Stone Bru Rolls into Polished Roastery and Coffee Bar in Sioux City, Iowa

The new Stone Bru Coffee roastery cafe in Sioux City, Iowa. All images courtesy of Stone Bru.

Iowa-based Stone Bru Coffee Company is rocking production in an expansive new roastery headquarters in Sioux City.

The 15,000-square-foot facility is roughly three times bigger than the offsite industrial space where Stone Bru’s Diedrich IR12 formerly resided, offering room to spare for professional coffee training and a weekday coffee bar.

Embedded on one Corian surface under 14-foot-high ceilings is a 3-group Mavam espresso station, two Marco SP9 pourover modules and various Mahlkönig grinders.

The black-quartz-fronted matching bar on the other side of the room provides a space for pastries and whole beans during cafe hours, and buffets or other spreads during private events.

“It’s very open, yet cozy somehow,” Stone Bru Director of Coffee Nick Topf told Daily Coffee News. “The amount of natural light in here, too, is incredible, compared to what we’re working on before. That’s a great bonus.”

Topf said that while private events were not originally part of the business plan, demand proved immediately popular.

“It’s wild,” Topf told DCN. “People are always looking for unique event spaces, and people have really grown to love our style of doing coffee, our brand and company culture. So people started reaching out to us when we were posting some pictures of the buildout and remodel of the space [asking] ‘Will you be willing to rent it out for events?’ We hadn’t thought about that at all, but we already did one.”

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Founded in 2015 with a single small drive-through location, Stone Bru opened its second location in Sioux City in 2017 prior to starting its roasting operation in October 2019. From there, the company quickly sprouted a wholesale roasting program and then opened a new flagship cafe with an onsite commercial kitchen and bakery in August 2020.

Though its original two cafes have since closed, the roasting operation has steadily picked up steam.

The historic building in the west end of downtown Sioux City fit the bill for a new roastery and training center, as well as for a showroom for sales and distribution for commercial and home coffee equipment, as well as a retail coffee bar.

“Our location is in kind of a cool, older part of town,” Topf said, noting that the company plans to soon hold tastings and classes. “We want to have our own events, and just do as much as we can to increase specialty coffee awareness and enthusiasm in our area. It’s quickly growing and we don’t plan for that to slow down anytime soon.”

Stone Bru Coffee Roasters roastery and bar is located at 101 W 3rd St. in Sioux City. Tell DCN’s editors about your new coffee shop or roastery here.