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The Corner Cup fresh coffee symbol decks out the sandwich board for the day’s specials.
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The early morning light at The Corner Cup highlights the hand-crafted rustic breakfast bar with its factory-cool stools.
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Abbie Huskey designed the tables at The Corner Cup to use re-purposed woods and metal. Her uncles executed her designs for tables, counters, and backdrops.
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Joe Buechler’s nut-and-fruit, no-bake granola bars
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The custom-made community high table in the space shared by The Corner Cup and Tamm Avenue Grill.
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Cinnamon-apple French toast, a new menu item, features house-made bread, with caramelized local apples and candied walnuts topped with a horchata glaze. It’s served with sweet potato-Brussels sprouts hash and house-made sausage patties.
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An intimate conversation group with a small table holds the center of the floor at the entry to the coffee shop. Damsels of Distressed found the curved couch and tufted chairs, which they covered in sturdy materials. Mirrors placed in industrial frames reflect the room.
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The mother and daughter team at Damsels of Distressed, mom Michele (left) and daughter Abbie, (right).
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A vintage sign, in black and white, advertising paint.
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A door from a dismantled St. Louis Sun paper box.
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Huskey accented two tiny windows placed high on the exterior wall of the coffee shop by placing found objects in the compressed space. One contains a Manhattan coffee can holding a potted plant.
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The other constrains two elegant spheres to create an abstract pattern in the window.
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Interesting blades from an industrial fan or motor rest against the wall, ready for repurposing, in the remodel for Tamm Avenue Grill.
If you’re looking for a comfortable coffee shop that cooks, look no further than The Corner Cup in Dogtown.
In just two years, the coffeehouse built a loyal clientele with its made-to-order breakfasts, available all day, sweet treats and coffees. Now they even offer more healthy and organic choices, locally sourced. Chef Bob Brazell, who recently left Athlete Eats on Cherokee Street, came on board as a consultant to develop a new menu at the popular Dogtown spot.
General manager Joe Buechler couldn’t be happier. “What Bob brings helps refine our message and get us even more on track to healthy eating,” he says. “We’re using more local farmers and food producers with Bob’s contacts. The menu will change seasonally. We’ve been introducing the new items gradually over the last few weeks. We’ll have the new menu settled in this month.”
Chef Sean Gibson, a graduate of L’Ecole Culinaire, who recently joined the team at The Corner Cup and Tamm Avenue Grill, will implement the changed menu.
We got a sneak preview of the Cinnamon-Apple French toast, a house-made bread topped with caramelized apples and candied walnuts, then drizzled with a horchata glaze. It’s served with a sweet potato-brussels sprouts hash and house-made sausage patties.
Other items include the breakfast meatloaf, a mixture of beef and pork, capped with an egg and smoked mushroom gravy. The Cup now offers pancakes made from whole grains, including farro, and specials like the breakfast ramen. The ramen starts with a smoked-bone broth, made in house, with noodles, crumbled sausage, egg and seasonal vegetables. There’s latitude, too, should the menu choices not match your dietary desires.
“The menu is structured so there are ways to build your own breakfast,” Brazell says. “Vegan, vegetarian, paleo and lower calorie items – we’ll offer the choices so people can follow their own eating plan.”
Corner Cup fans take note: Joe Buechler’s handmade no-bake granola bars will remain on the menu. Honey-sweet and whole grain luscious, Buechler’s bars of peanut butter, honey, whole oats, chopped nuts, seeds, dried fruits and protein powders won’t change. Be advised: these babies sell out by ten most mornings.
There’s more than new dishes on the menu, however. The Cup is expanding into a space they’ll share with the Tamm Avenue Grill to handle the overflow breakfast crowd. It’s a gem that’s hip without the hype and comfortable without a touch of shabbiness, thanks to the design skills of the Damsels of Distressed.
The Damsels, who have proved they can reclaim and repurpose just about anything, put together a design that’s lean on costs and high on style for the coffee spot. “We worked on a very tight budget,” explains design director Abbie Huskey.
She hasn’t yet graduated from college, but this full-time student and her business partner and mother, Michele Roshell, masterminded the design for the green, up-cycled/industrial-chic style.
Although the Corner Cup space is small, it’s finished with winsome touches like a plants in vintage coffee tins and round mirrors in industrial frames hung by ropes on the wall. Huskey designed it with a light touch and a plethora of up-cycled materials any do-it-yourself fanatic will find interesting.
“Abbie made the lights over the front counter,” Michele Roshell says. The tastefully rusted light fixtures sport longish Edison bulbs that glow in a yellow pattern. It’s Boho with an elegant streak, recycled with refined restraint.
“The rusted chains are from my great-grandfather’s barn and the rest? Abbie came up with the prisms and the shades and just had this vision,” Roshell says.
The vision extends to the back bar of the coffee station, which is made of corrugated tin salvaged from the chicken house of the same great-grandfather who owned the barn.
“The health inspector wanted us to take it down, scrub it with wire brushes and seal it with several coats after we installed it originally, so we did,” Roshell says. “We know the look we want, and we find the right people to help us, whether it’s a corrugated tin wall, reclaimed furniture or building spaces.”
The two have a great relationship with the carpenters who craft the designs they dream up. “My older brother Kevin Riebold of K&S Wood Products made the counter for us from reclaimed wood,” Roshell said. “David Riebold, my younger brother, fabricated the wood and iron tables. He repurposed the existing table pedestals, but the tops gave the space a whole new look.”
The pair also converted a nothing-much back parking lot to an outdoor patio called ‘Locals Only’ for the Tamm Avenue Grill, which adjoins the coffeehouse. The damsels located old letters, each one different, for the sign. Huskey thought up the herringbone-patterned wooden fence. The spot’s enjoyed success serving only local beers and food from Tamm Avenue Grill.
Current projects include updating the Grill. We caught up with the pair as they unloaded a delivery of vintage signs and sculptural oddments to deck out the newly painted and refreshed interiors.
“We brightened the paint on the wall, replaced the ceiling tiles and installed some new lighting,” Huskey says. “We’ll add our things to make it more interesting while keeping it simple.”
Look for more from this mother and daughter team as they grow their business. Check out their website for details of other projects and items for sale to the public.
Be sure to stop by the Corner Cup for breakfast or coffee. It’s a gem hidden in plain sight on Tamm Avenue.
The Corner Cup
1221 Tamm
Dogtown
314-899-0287
Hours: Open 7 days a week. Monday through Saturday, 6 am - 9 pm
Facebook: The Corner Cup
