Upshot Coffee opens second location in St. Charles

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Courtesy Upshot Coffee

Courtesy Upshot Coffee

Upshot Coffee quietly opened its second location, at 816 N. Kingshighway in St. Charles. Just like the cafe’s original Cottleville branch, the new location promises espresso drinks and food from sister brand Beets & Bones.

“We've been wanting to branch out for a while," says Upshot Coffee owner Conor VanBuskirk. "We plan on continuing to branch out—increase our size, volume, and make it easier for more people to experience our cafés.”

Courtesy Upshot Coffee

The location's former life as a brake shop inspired a nickname for the new location: Upshot Coffee Brake Shop. The space has been transformed into a modern café, with the counter in the center of the venue.

“There were a couple things we were looking for,” VanBuskirk says. “One was we wanted to be in more of a city setting, so we would have the density of housing and offices. We wanted to be near a university, and we wanted to be near high schools and manufacturing. This fit the bill all around.” The new location is near St. Charles High School and Lindenwood University, with Main Street and the Katy Trail within easy reach.

Courtesy Upshot Coffee

“One thing that some other cafés do really well is have a different feel in each one, but you also know without a doubt where you are,” he says. “If I'm in Chicago, I know when I'm in an Intelligentsia, even though each café feels different.”

Whereas the Cottleville location is inside a converted house—“more residential, more cutesy, suburban”—the new location has a completely different feel. “There are more wide open spaces, basically glass, concrete, and metal,” VanBuskirk says. “The bar is in the middle of the café, where customers can walk all around it. It's more experiential; instead of us being separated behind the counter, the counter is out in the middle. It just opens everything up.”

Upshot hired architect S.J. Hollander to renovate the space. “He is very in tune with everything we needed to do for the city down here,” VanBuskirk says. “It was plug-and-play thanks to him.”

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Courtesy Upshot Coffee

The food and drink at the St. Charles location nearly mirrors the offerings at Cottleville, with the standard espresso drinks, pour-over coffees, specialties such as the espresso tonic, and “alt coffees” such as the matcha latte, chai latte, and charcoal latte. Most coffees are in the $3–$5 range, with a selection of herbal and fruit teas on offer for $3.50–$4.

Courtesy Upshot Coffee

Executive chef Nick Zotos’ menu of toasts, sandwiches, brunch dishes, and other specialties is supplemented by a range of pastries. “There are a couple of things we're not offering here yet, until we get the kitchen up and running at full steam,” VanBuskirk says. Eventually, though, the plan is for the menus at both locations to be essentially identical.

Upshot is accepting dine-in customers but asks that all customers wear a mask to enter the store, similar to the café’s employees. Although times are far from normal, VanBuskirk says Upshot has weathered the COVID-19 storm reasonably well so far. In fact, sales increased during lockdown, he says. That was in part thanks to the Upshot ordering app, launched just weeks before the pandemic. Customers can use the app to place dine-in or to-go orders at either café or for delivery via DoorDash and ChowNow. Before the pandemic, the Cottleville location was receiving a couple of orders each week through the app; as business went curbside in March, however, orders through the app exploded, hitting more than 200 a day.

Courtesy Upshot Coffee

VanBuskirk says orders for food items also increased during that period, a bump that he attributes partly to Zotos’ arrival. “He's rolled out new stuff that's amazing,” VanBuskirk says. But the Upshot owner is also convinced that the user experience of ordering through an app makes diners engage with the menu in a more thoughtful way, which can lead them to try new items.

That decision to upgrade Upshot’s digital capabilities was critical to the café’s survival. “It kept us in business,” VanBuskirk says. “People were extremely grateful and used it an unbelievable amount when we were completely shut down. Since we've reopened, we've seen it drop off and more people coming in, but we're still getting a decent amount of orders on the app and expect that to continue, both in Cottleville and St. Charles."

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Courtesy Upshot Coffee