Two New Coffee Shops to Open in Downtown

Written by John Valentine

Growing his own coffee shop chain for the second time, Ken Zeff knows what he's doing and can see similar patterns downtown. These patterns guide him on where he wants to grow next.

Similar to when he was expanding Crazy Mocha Coffee Co. Zeff sees reason for optimism for downtown.

"I’m still just such a huge fan of downtown," Zeff told the Pittsburgh Business Times. "When I look at Grant Street, I think it makes sense." 

It's Grant Street where he is opening a 4,000-square-foot location in the Frick Building that he described as "the biggest store we've ever done." The goal is to provide a place for customers to relax and hang out that he sees less and less available downtown now.

"The Frick Building is such a great building and it's nowhere close to any other store that we have," said Zeff, adding it's in a "part of town in which they never really had a neighborhood-feeling coffee house. It was always grab and go." 

Zeff is also working to open a second Yinz Coffee within Gateway Center, where there's already a shop at One Gateway. Look for Yinz Coffee to open at Four Gateway in October.

"Each building downtown is a separate neighborhood in a sense," added Zeff.

Zeff's previous and current coffee shops provide him with an interesting perspective about downtown. He views downtown's challenges now as he works to add his fourth and fifth Yinz Coffee locations to what it was like in the years before the Great Recession.

"When we went into downtown in 2007, downtown wasn’t really that exciting," he said, recalling opening in Market Square when there were plenty of vacancies to choose from.

Ten years later, he found downtown was thriving and he had expanded to as many as 13 downtown Crazy Mocha shops.

"There’s a cycle going on and it feels very similar to the cycle of 2007 and 2008," he said.

"A lot of people are talking about what we can do to make downtown better. I like it right now and I think it can only get better," he said. "There’s definitely opportunity down there."