Gloom Coffee a Bright Addition to Seattle’s Pioneer Square

Inside the new Gloom Coffee Bar in Seattle. Photo by Alex Modisette, courtesy of Gloom Coffee.

The future looks bright for Gloom Coffee, which just opened its cheery first coffee shop in the former Elm Coffee Roasters space in Seattle’s Pioneer Square.

The 1,600-square-foot cafe is split between an in-house roasting operation and a cocktail-inspired coffee bar, with retail bags reflecting the brand’s playful approach to design and service. 

Slightly more than half the space is devoted to the roastery, anchored by a Probat L12 roaster. The rest serves customers grabbing drip and espresso drinks to go, or settling in for table service with beverages such as the Supersonic Espresso Tonic, featuring sage-lime cordial, pear juice, espresso and tonic.

Photo by Alex Modisette, courtesy of Gloom Coffee.

“We wanted to run the coffee bar side of things like a good marriage between your typical coffee bar in an urban area, where people need to get in and get out and do their thing… while also leaning into running the for-here service similar to a nice cocktail bar,” Gloom Coffee Co-Founder Alex Sciarrotta told Daily Coffee News. “We’re basically trying to make cocktails that taste just as good as any proper craft cocktail, but non-alcoholic.”

A Piña Colada-inspired drink combines espresso with coconut milk, pineapple juice and pseudo lime. The carbonated Side Quest, a Gloom original, mixes a bright Kenyan coffee with clarified strawberry, blueberry rooibos tea, pseudo lemon and cardamom-nutmeg coconut milk.

To conjure these drinks, Gloom baristas draw from the cocktail industry, including nonalcoholic spirits, a centrifuge for clarifying fruit juices and house-made “pseudo” juices. The juices are made from upcycled rinds and other fruit remnants combined with water, sugar, salt and acid powders, creating a substitute designed to mimic the flavor and mouthfeel of fresh juice while staying fresh for weeks longer.

Photo by Alex Modisette, courtesy of Gloom Coffee.

“We’re trying to lean into as minimal waste as possible with the program,” Sciarrotta told Daily Coffee News. “So we’re taking those solids and then dehydrating them, using them to create edible garnishes for the drinks, that sort of thing, and that will rotate seasonally.”

The four local coffee professionals who co-founded Gloom all worked behind the bar at Narrative Coffee, the multiroaster cafe Sciarrotta owns in Everett, Washington. They include: Nate Reppert, who has recently roasted for Velton’s Coffee; Josh Modisette, a former Baratza service technician; and Liberty Bar bartender Brandon Paul Weaver.

Paying above-average hourly wages, offering benefits and fostering a supportive workplace are priorities for Gloom, which Sciarrotta began planning in 2023.

After saving for a period, the team acquired Elm Coffee Roasters, including its Pioneer Square lease and the Probat roaster already installed there. The team continues to serve Elm Coffee wholesale customers under the Elm brand while building Gloom as a separate, more public-facing brand.

Photo by Alex Modisette, courtesy of Gloom Coffee.

Inside the cafe, Gloom asserts itself through saturated bright pink and dark blue, pops of green from chairs and potted plants, colorful retail bags and a range of coffee and espresso drinkware sourced through the MoMA Design Store in New York.

“A common feeling I think a lot of folks have is that life can be very rough and difficult and gloomy at times, but it’s also absolutely beautiful and worth engaging with,” Sciarrotta said. “We like playing with that juxtaposition, and the branding is meant to subtly communicate that we care about what we do and we take what we do seriously, but we’re not taking ourselves too seriously.”

Photo by Alex Modisette, courtesy of Gloom Coffee.

Gloom Coffee is located at 240 2nd Ave S #103 in Seattle.

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