Rowan Coffee is Flowing in West Asheville with New Roastery Cafe

The entrance to the new Rowan Coffee shop in West Asheville. Photo by Danny Lebsock of Heirloom Photographic, courtesy of Rowan Coffee.

Asheville, North Carolina-based roasting company Rowan Coffee opened its second location last month, a classy and comfortable cafe that also now houses the roasting operation. 

Inside a former automotive garage in West Asheville, the new digs benefit from vintage industrial windows that stretch nearly from the floor to the ceiling on three sides, offering loads of natural light.

The shop’s window frame grids, along with its exposed steel beams and brick walls, inspired Rowan Coffee Co-Founder Jessi Lee Cord to extend a crosshatch pattern with handmade green tile at the service counter, with white subway tile on an exterior kitchen wall.

Photo by Danny Lebsock of Heirloom Photographic, courtesy of Rowan Coffee.

“I fell in love with the building when I first moved to Asheville, and have long dreamed of it being used for food and bev,” Cord’s husband and Rowan Coffee Co-Owner Bow Smith told Daily Coffee News. “With the ample light, we decided to pursue a brighter, airier feel with design that was inspired by a conglomeration of oyster bars, European bistros and a ’50s diner.”

The walnut wood and brass accents of the bar extend the design established at the original Rowan location in downtown Asheville, which is similarly refined but almost oppositely vibed.

“The original cafe is naturally a low-light space and leans into design elements of a dim but polished cocktail bar,” said Smith. “This space has a much more open and light feeling to it.”

Photo by Danny Lebsock of Heirloom Photographic, courtesy of Rowan Coffee.

A custom stained-glass transom window is installed over the kitchen door, while inside food program pairs Scandinavian influences with culture and ingredients from the American South, resulting in sweet and savory waffles and other light bites. Low-intervention and natural wines are also served in the evening.

Meanwhile, in a 960-square-foot portion of the overall 2,760-square-foot new location, Smith takes the lead on the company’s new 15-kilo Mill City Roasters machine. 

Evan Cannon and Jack Zlotea, both baristas from the first cafe, now pitch in on production roasting, while Smith continues developing roast profiles and selecting green coffees primarily from importers including Semilla, Osito, Red Fox Coffee Merchants and The Coffee Quest.

Photo by Danny Lebsock of Heirloom Photographic, courtesy of Rowan Coffee.

“We’re aiming to create sustained and resilient purchasing relationships rooted in year-over-year purchasing, selecting to work with importers who share similar values and vision for the future of coffee production,” said Smith. “Those importers are transparent in their pricing and business practices and aim to support smallholder farmers in a holistic way, purchasing across tiers of quality and aiming to dig deeper into existing relationships first before spreading out to new relationships or regions.”

The Rowan selection centers mainly on washed coffees, with only a couple natural-process coffees. In both shops, these are transformed into beverages via a Slayer Steam LPX espresso machine, Mahlkönig espresso and brew grinders, a Curtis G4 brewer for larger batches and Fellow Stagg X brewers for single-cup pourovers.

“Ultimately, we want the coffees we buy to be expressive and clean,” said Smith. “When roasting, we aim for flavor clarity but with sweetness to complement acidity, creating an overall balanced cup that we believe best represents the confluence of plant genetics/variety and the work done by those who grew, harvested, and processed the coffee.”

Photo by Danny Lebsock of Heirloom Photographic, courtesy of Rowan Coffee.

After starting his coffee career as a barista at Black Tap Coffee (now called Second State Coffee) in Charleston, South Carolina, Smith joined Hex Coffee in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a production roaster leading up to the start of the pandemic.

Smith founded Rowan Coffee in 2020, launching with a mobile cart before opening the first brick-and-mortar store in 2021 and in-house roasting in January 2023. 

Now with a much larger production machine, the company plans to pursue more wholesale, while also developing and scaling the food menu inside the new shop’s 200-square-foot kitchen.

Photo by Danny Lebsock of Heirloom Photographic, courtesy of Rowan Coffee.

“The espresso cart was primarily situated where the new cafe is located, so we’re coming back full circle,” said Smith. “With the second shop now open, we want to continue refining the existing operations, building systems to continually improve the quality and consistency of our coffee, food and service, while building sustainable and fulfilling coffee careers for all the new members on our team.”

Rowan Coffee is located at 785 Haywood Road in Asheville. Comments? Questions? News to share? Contact DCN’s editors here. For all the latest coffee industry news, subscribe to the DCN newsletter. 

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