Broadsheet Coffee Roasters Is Getting Ready to Open in Cambridge
Broadsheet Coffee Roasters open in Cambridge in July. / Photos provided
A new coffee roasting company is getting ready to fuel a residential area of Cambridge with Mediterranean-inflected breakfast and lunch, outdoor seating, and already-award-winning roasts. Broadsheet Coffee Roasters is on track to open just after the Fourth of July, says owner Aaron MacDougall.
MacDougall started roasting coffee as a hobby about five years ago, and recently returned from a trip touring plantations in Honduras after placing first in Genuine Origins Roast and Go competition. Barista competitions like that, and others that he and Broadsheet’s beverage director and retail manager, Wolf Marnell, have taken on, are a creative outlet for the coffee connoisseurs, MacDougall says.
So are aspects of the Broadsheet menu. The shop will offer Colombian, Ethiopian, and Peruvian coffees roasted on a stainless steel, 15-kilogram Loring roaster inside the Cambridge shop, as well as a range of “Barista specials.” Expect uncommon drinks like an espresso tonic, made with a house-made shrub tonic, a Dark n’ Stormy, with espresso and ginger beer; and other rotating coffee mocktails, says Marnell. The barista previously worked for Pavement and its predecessor, Espresso Royale.
Marnell is also collaborating with fellow Cambridge company Curio Spice on a light and peppery chai blend with coriander, white pepper, and saffron. Other teas are sourced from Song Tea in San Francisco, and local herb provider Mem Tea. The menu will eventually feature some tea-based mocktails, too; fruity shrubs, iced teas, iced coffee, and nitro iced coffee, poured from a sparkling new Modern Draught-installed system, will be available at the outset.
Chef Darine Flefel Hazboun is providing the expertise for a unique food program. An alum of the Loading Dock in Belmont, she’ll bring a variety of creative baked goods to Broadsheet, including vegan and gluten-free options. Middle Eastern influence permeates her breakfast and lunch menus, including a Georgian feta-mozzarella-filled bread boat with spinach and zhug hot sauce; and quinoa beef kibbeh with a beet-tahini sauce and spring salad. Weekend brunch will offer some less traditional, American-style plates, like a potato waffle with smoked salmon, capers, and labne. Check out the opening menus below.
The bright space, a former convenience store next door to Savenor’s Market and across the street from Kirkland Tap & Trotter, has about 40 seats inside. Broadsheet was also approved for about a dozen seats outside on Kirkland Street. Big windows let ample light wash over a marble and walnut coffee counter, and bright neon lights, including a sleeping happy face alight when the shop is closed, make the modern facade a little whimsical.
Broadsheet will softly open with baked goods and coffee, while the full menu offerings will ramp up over the course of a few days, MacDougall says. The grand opening will be Wednesday, July 5.
Broadsheet Coffee Roasters, opening in July at 100 Kirkland St., Cambridge, broadsheetcoffee.com.
