Inside the first standalone cafe of Sun Bear Specialty Coffee Roasters in St. Petersburg, Florida. Photo by Rachel Burkhart, courtesy of Sun Bear Coffee Roasters.
In Florida’s “Sunshine City,” St. Petersburg, Sun Bear Specialty Coffee Roasters is soaking up the remaining rays of the season at its first standalone cafe.
Opened in late July, the 1,200-square-foot cafe pairs a laid-back retro aesthetic with Sun Bear’s focus on quality coffees brewed with care.
Sun Bear’s 1970s-inspired branding carries into the cafe through a butter-yellow tiled bar, red shelving and pendant lights, plus a mix of natural wood and stainless steel throughout the space. The old-fashioned menu board behind the counter is flanked by a mounted pair of vintage hi-fi speakers.
Photo by Rachel Burkhart, courtesy of Sun Bear Coffee Roasters.
“We were very disciplined with this one thing,” Sun Bear Coffee Owner Kenny Beers said of the retro design. “We already had a great space, but our Pinterest pinboard was loaded.”
In an 800-square-foot adjoining space, Beers roasts coffees for the cafe and wholesale clients on a Yoshan machine.
“It’s still small, but so much better than my garage,” Beers said.
The standalone opening follows roughly five years of coffee sales at markets, pop-ups and other local businesses, during which Sun Bear built its program around lightly roasted single-origin coffees, including coffees featuring experimental post-harvest processing.
Photo by Rachel Burkhart, courtesy of Sun Bear Coffee Roasters.
Coffees now head to a cream-white 2-group Rancilio Classe 5 espresso machine at the new bar, with an Ethiopian Guji coffee often serving as the espresso base. Some drinks feature house-made syrups or additions such as dragon fruit cold foam. Manual pourovers highlight co-fermented offerings as well as washed-process coffees from a mix of importers and direct relationships.
“I’m always chasing down the next producer,” Beers said. “But we have great relationships through Unblended, Cafe Imports and Cofinet as well as some direct relationships that are mostly through WhatsApp.”
Prior to the coffee business, Beers was teaching music in Cambodia, where a resurgent love of late-’60s/early-’70s music and pop culture proved influential. Beers would sometimes perform at a cafe run by Kakada Nub, a roaster and barista who has ranked prominently in Cambodian national barista competitions.
Photo by Rachel Burkhart, courtesy of Sun Bear Coffee Roasters.
As Beers and Nub became friends, Nub taught Beers the basics of roasting before the COVID-19 pandemic forced Beers to return to the United States. He formally established Sun Bear in 2021, eventually opening a small coffee bar inside St. Petersburg’s Sans Market.
Sun Bear closed the Sans Market bar at the end of May to focus on the new cafe, where pastries and light bites from outside vendors accompany espresso drinks, cold brew, drip coffee and other beverages.
“We use vendors who can deliver to us frequently, as we don’t make food ourselves,” Beers said. “We want it to be good, and we want to focus on the coffee instead.”
Several bands played at the Sun Bear grand opening on July 26, marking a full-circle occasion for the musician-turned-coffee pro.
Photo by Rachel Burkhart, courtesy of Sun Bear Coffee Roasters.
“The grand opening was a big success,” Beers said. “Next up for Sun Bear is that we have added more subscription services such as Crema.co and Bottomless, and we want to expand our roasting to an even broader reach across the U.S.”
Sun Bear Coffee Roasters is located at 1942 1st Ave S, St. Petersburg, Florida.
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
