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Intelligentsia Coffee, the Chicago-based third wave coffee roasters, set the opening date for its first-ever Texas cafe in Austin. The 607 West Third Street coffee shop will open on Wednesday, August 21 within the Third + Shoal building in downtown Austin.
Of note: the menu will feature various tapped coffee and tea drinks. This includes a nitro matcha oat milk latte, cold coffee, and iced tea, among other choices. There’s also an Austin-specific drink, the Roadrunner, made with cold coffee, fresh grapefruit juice, and soda, all poured over ice. Then there are daily-changing single-origin beans, espresso drinks, and teas.
Austin bakeries Easy Tiger and Sour Duck Market will offer up pastries at the cafe. This will include croissants, danishes, and cookies.
The 30-seat coffee bar was designed by architect Scott Magic, who used materials found in Texas for the space. The horseshoe-shaped bar is made out of gray Texas Lueders limestone (the same found in local public swimming pools), and there’s a giant mural done by artist Erin Curtis made with bricks.
Intelligentsia will be open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. On opening day, the cafe will host giveaways from 7 a.m. to noon, which will include a year of free coffee, chocolates, and tickets to the Trans-Pecos Festival in Marfa.
Intelligentsia co-founders Doug Zell and Emily Mange opened the first cafe in Chicago in 1995. It expanded with locations in Los Angeles and New York. California-based company Peet’s Coffee answered Intelligentsia’s call for a private equity buyer in 2015, which led to Boston locations too.
Zell is actually also opening his own combination cafe, Roman-style pizzeria, beer and wine bar, and bicycle shop down in South Austin this summer too, the Meteor.
