Jet Coffee - Town Center
Jet Coffee - Town Center
Clients: Frontline Companies, Jet Coffee
Project Status: Completed 2024
Project Scope: 3194 SF Coffee Shop with Outdoor Rooftop Cafe
Architect of Record: Kevin Stewart (while at Manuel Commercial)
Project Team (MC): Chris Leger, David Nelson
Collaborators: Southeast Engineers, AST Engineers, Adam Beazley Design
Contractor: Manuel Commercial
Tags: Coffee Shop, Commercial, Franchise Prototype
When John Tomassini and Mark Guidry of locally owned Jet Coffee requested a design for their first shop completely designed from scratch, they shared ideas of material palettes and a fun concept of an outdoor café on the rooftop. I was able to take their concept and bring it to life, and they loved the design from the first sketch.
“Kevin is an absolute delight to work with. My partners and I have done several projects with him and are beyond grateful. Not only has he taken our dreams and put them to real life, but he has amazing creativity to add to our ideas and make them even better. We highly recommend using Kevin for all your architectural needs!”
— John Tommasini
CEO, Jet Coffee
It all begins with a vision…
I remember meeting John Tomassini, CEO of Jet Coffee, for the first time. The way he spoke about dreams and a mission from God to give people a good cup of coffee was inspiring. He believed they had the right piece of land, so now he needed the vision for an exterior design that reflected the brand. In the first sketch, I incorporated their material palette desires (wood accent wall/strong contrast to signage elements) and their idea for a ‘crow’s nest’ where students could hang out after school upstairs, and designed a massing that gave their coffee shop an anchored base with an open-air top.
The project is an end-cap anchor for a larger development with Phil Devey of Frontline Companies. The system by which we would design and build the raised outside café deck over a waterproof membrane roof for the conditioned space below heavily influenced the decision to make Jet Coffee the only structural steel building in the project. The floating tread interior stair backed by a full-height wood accent wall connects the first floor to the outdoor rooftop café.
My favorite part of this project was the heavy collaboration with the Jet Coffee crew. Instead of hiring a designer who specialized in coffee equipment, John chose to educate me on what was working and not working about their current service and prep areas to best strategize what to do differently moving forward. It was a joy having John’s management team collaborating on what they envisioned would make the store more efficient and ideal. The resulting layout went through multiple revisions and I’m so pleased that they are enjoying the new workspace 😊
