Arrowroot Coffee Co. has been in business for five years but
will soon have its first brick-and-mortar retail location. Owner Jacob Dinardo
said he is purchasing the building at 625 E. Adams St. that previously housed
Recycled Records.
“I jumped at the opportunity to have that building; the old
Recycled Records space really meant a lot to me,” Dinardo said. “I grew up
going there. I have a music degree, so that store has a special place in my
heart, and I’ve bought a lot of albums over the years.”
Arrowroot Coffee Co. roasts small batch coffees in a location
on North Walnut Street and wholesales coffee to grocery stores as well as many area businesses.
“I roast coffee for Mockingbird Bakery, Wellthy Juice,
Beelzebunz, Papo’s Café, (Pease’s at) Bunn Gourmet,” Dinardo said. “I also
started a mobile coffee trailer about a year and a half ago, which allows me to
do events.”
Dinardo said that he plans to relocate the roasting operation
to the back half of the East Adams Street building and have a coffee shop in
the front portion. The business will then be renamed Arrowroot Coffee Co.
Roastery and Coffee Lounge.
“A lot of what I want to bring to Springfield is the coffee
lounge piece of that title,” Dinardo said. “I want people to be able to sit down
and have a high-end, quality coffee where they can enjoy the drink and meet
with friends to have an experience.”
Along those lines, Dinardo said he isn’t concerned about not
having a drive-thru window.
“This won’t be the fast, grab-and-go culture that a lot of
coffee shops have,” he said.
Dinardo said the building will need an extensive overhaul
before the business can open. “It’s pretty much a blank slate right now,” he
said.
The property has been in the Kessler family since 1910, first
operating as Springfield Furniture Co. and eventually transitioning to Recycled
Records. Beginning in the 1980s, the store began offering an assortment of records
and collectibles when brothers Gary and Mark Kessler took over from their parents,
Wilbur and Grace Kessler, who in turn had taken over the business from Grace’s
parents, Joe and Ida Katz.
The brothers talked for years about closing the store and
retiring, but it didn’t materialize until Mark Kessler died in April 2022 following
a brief illness. Recycled Records closed a year later.
Now, Dinardo hopes to have renovations complete in time to open
in the summer of 2025. In the meantime, he plans to continue the wholesale side
of the business and taking the coffee trailer to events such as the Winter Old
Capitol Farmers Market. But he said having a brick-and-mortar location will
create many additional opportunities.
“The initial plan is to have morning hours on weekdays and
expand to the weekends once I get open and stabilized,” Dinardo said. “But I also
want to do some evening events like board game nights, yoga nights, maybe live
music. This will be a real community space for people to enjoy.”
Arrowroot Coffee Co. was one of three recipients of the 2024
Isringhausen DRIVE grant, a program designed to support
local entrepreneurs in establishing their businesses
within downtown Springfield. Dinardo said the $20,000 grant will be “a huge help
moving forward, getting everything renovated and up-to-date.”
This article appears in November SBJ 2024.