Boomtown Coffee Has Acquired The Honeymoon—And A Few Upgrades Are On The Way

Houston specialty roaster and retailer Boomtown Coffee has acquired all ownership in downtown hotspot The Honeymoon Café & Bar at 300 Main. It is being renamed to Boomtown Coffee Main St. Café & Bar. The former co-owners are Brad Moore and Ryan Rouse, who also own several bars in Houston, including Grand Prize Bar, Big Star Bar and Moving Sidewalk. It is the second retail location for Boomtown Coffee; the original shop is at 242 West 19th in The Heights.

The café temporarily closes the week of March 18 for some light remodeling and then reopens on March 24. (That said, unexpected things can happen during construction projects, so Boomtown Coffee encourages customers to follow the progress on social media.)

Boomtown Coffee’s offerings include its signature Milk & Honey Latte, regular pulled espresso, flat whites and cortados. The coffee beans used include Ethiopian natural-process coffees — a Boomtown Coffee specialty — and rotating selections from Kenya, Sumatra, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia and Mexico.

According to Boomtown Coffee CEO and creative director Andrew Loreman (who works alongside founder and director of coffee operations Matthew Toomey), when Boomtown Coffee Main St. Café & Bar debuts, patrons can expect not only the expanded selection of high quality espresso and coffee beverages, but also favorite food items from the original location in The Heights. That includes the popular Boomtown Taco, which incorporates a fried runny-egg (as opposed to scrambled eggs), black beans, avocado and salsa. The company is also bringing back a barbacoa taco previously served in The Heights as well as some sandwiches.

That said, the most popular dishes at The Honeymoon are being retained, including the turkey and avocado sandwich, the Honeymoon Burger, French toast and some other brunch items. Loreman says those will only be available at the downtown location, not The Heights.

Acquiring a coffee shop that also offer cocktails represents a new adventure for the company. (The Heights location may someday offer beer and wine, but hasn’t made that change yet due to space considerations.) While The Honeymoon has always had a few drinks featuring coffee on the menu, expect Boomtown Coffee Main St. Café & Bar to expand on that idea and also add drinks that include tea.

The change in ownership seems like a natural transition. Boomtown Coffee has been supplying its locally roasted coffee beans to The Honeymoon and maintaining the on-site roaster since the shop first opened in the summer of 2014. “Our entire roasting operation was actually housed inside of Honeymoon when it first opened — until we quickly outgrew that space and expanded to our current warehouse,” said

Loreman says the goal of the minor redesign is to make the space lighter and brighter, just as Boomtown did with The Heights location. “We want to change the perception of the sleepy coffee shop,” he said. “What we did in The Heights was brighten everything up—added brighter lights, lightened the walls—to just really give the place a sense of energy. One reason people drink coffee is to give them energy, so why would you come into a space that makes you sleepy?” No matter what though, the character of the historic space will be preserved.

Boomtown Coffee’s goal for the shop, as stated in a press release, is no less than to “provide the growing number of residences and offices in the Market Square area with a world-class coffee shop to call their own.” We asked Loreman what that means.

“To us, it means bringing the highest quality [of coffee] possible from all around the world — like we’ve been trying to do in The Heights — and bringing it downtown,” he explained. “I think The Honeymoon has been doing it very well so far but we just want to take it to the next level and really help Houstonians understand that Boomtown Coffee is going to be as good as or better than any coffee shop in the world.”

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