At the Sweetspire Coffee and Bakery in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. All images courtesy of Sweetspire Coffee and Bakery.
Southern hospitality is meeting modern coffee in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, at the Sweetspire Coffee and Bakery, where offerings include fresh brews, biscuits and belonging.
Guests entering the 2,500-square-foot space in Williamsport’s historic Old City neighborhood are immediately drawn to a light hickory and maple-topped bar with a white Sanremo D8 espresso machine and SR84 grinder. Origami manual pourover stands ready to showcase coffees roasted on-site by certified Q Grader Brittney Gross.
“We really wanted to create a cozy and welcoming space, but at a bit of an elevated level, while also being on a startup budget,” Gross told Daily Coffee News. “We have a bit of history to work around, as the space was a livery [stable] centuries ago. With the cobblestones still in place, there is a bit of an industrial feel that we tried to soften.”
Located near Lycoming College, the company was co-founded by Lycoming political science professor Caroline Payne and her husband, Nate Steele. In 2013, Payne founded the Warrior Coffee Project at Lycoming, which takes students to remote coffee-growing regions to work with farmers on economic development projects.
Gross is a Lycoming alum and former student of Payne’s whose professional roasting career started at Alabaster Coffee Roaster & Tea Co. in Williamsport while she was in college. Following a one-year Lycoming development fellowship in the Dominican Republic after graduating, Gross moved to Massachusetts and worked her way up to head roaster for Plymouth-based Speedwell Coffee.
Representing Speedwell, Gross won the silver medal at U.S. Cup Tasters Championship last year before returning to Williamsport as a founding partner of Sweetspire. Today, with a new Diedrich DR-3 roaster in full view of customers, Gross buys green coffees through importers such as Arango Specialty Coffee and Cafe Imports, as well as through Lycoming College’s coffee import program, which buys directly from producers.
“My main priority in sourcing is to ask as many questions of the importer as possible,” said Gross. “Ideally I’d like our purchases to have positive economic impacts on the folks who grow the coffee I get to roast.”
Payne, who grew up in Tennessee, and Steele, from Texas, both consider themselves transplanted Southerners at heart. At Sweetspire, they share their roots through molasses cookies, chantilly puffs, smoky sausage rolls and other treats made fresh daily in the kitchen. Customers can take these to go or stay on the cozy armchairs, rugs and couch in the cafe.
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The shop also aims to be a community hub, hosting events and meetings in its spacious cafe. Sweetspire has already welcomed a plant-cutting exchange, a pottery class for mug making, study groups and more.
“We hope to continue to be a third space for our community and continue to provide excellence in our pastries and coffee,” Gross said of Sweetpire’s path ahead. “We of course want to expand our wholesale coffee program and would like to host coffee classes geared towards baristas and coffee professionals in the region.”
Sweetspire Coffee and Bakery is located at 124 East Fourth Street in Williamsport.
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
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