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.