Long-awaited Belleville café welcomes first customers with soft opening
Belleville business owner Erik Busch, founder/owner/head roaster of LongStory Coffee, got what he wanted for Christmas: LongStory Coffee is open for business!
Busch welcomed customers to the much-anticipated new coffee shop with a soft opening that began Friday, Dec. 16.
The café will be in full swing starting Monday, Dec. 26.
An email to those on LongStory’s mailing list was sent the evening before the soft opening.
“After many months of hard work and jumping through hoops, we finally have completed (most) of our construction, received all of our appropriate licenses, and are ready to have a soft opening!” stated the Dec. 15 email, which then extended an invitation to all email subscribers to attend.
That list included yours truly.
The husband and I stopped by mid-morning for our daily caffeine fixes — we both ordered pour-over coffees. They were delish!
The soft opening had a pretty great turnout, if I do say so.
I didn’t get to speak with Busch much at the time (mostly brief greetings); he and the baristas were pretty busy. But I could tell my fellow customers were just as excited about the opening as I was.
There are a few things on their to-do list still in progress: the window seating bar, installation of their nitro taps and curbside signs, painting lines on the parking lot and a couple other odds and ends.
In addition to ordering beverages at the counter, customers can purchase bags of coffee at the café.
You can also buy coffee beans, nitro coffee and branded LongStory merch via the website. (I recently bought a bag of their La Llorona roast at Down the Hall Homebrew, and I love it!)
Be sure to check it out.
LongStory Coffee is located at 732 S. Illinois St. in Belleville.
Starting Monday, the hours will be 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. Get more info by calling 618-975-7398 or visiting longstorycoffee.com. Get the latest updates on their Facebook page.
This story was originally published December 20, 2022 at 2:54 PM.
