What does one do when COVID restrictions have your primary interest virtually locked down? Well, if you’re Riverbank High School head varsity football coach, you can open a coffee shop in downtown Riverbank.
That’s just what Coach Anthony Buich is working on, a shop called Coffee Bruin, to be opened on Santa Fe Street, between Third and Fourth streets. It’ll be at 3310 Santa Fe, right next to Get Toasted, and across the street from Pizza Plus.
Buich said he’s hoping to finish up, get inspections passed, and open by the end of February.
In the meantime, he’s been working at the shop, where the new coffee bar is beginning to take shape. This past week, he was working on stripping down the concrete floor, getting it ready to refinish.
There’ll be several stations at the bar, featuring coffee brewing styles like latte, cappuccino and espresso.
Since last May, Buich and his wife Tayler have been filling orders for coffee, taken via their Facebook page, for raw coffee beans, either plain or ground before delivery. And they’ve been able to serve an area from Turlock to Oakdale, delivering the orders themselves.
They have several suppliers for a number of different blends coming up.
Their primary line is called Ursa Major, an astronomy term that refers to the Great Bear, another name for the most prominent northern constellation in the sky, containing the seven stars that form the Big Dipper.
It’s a medium-caffeinated blend roast, but in the meantime, they’ve also been featuring a decaf coffee.
The name of the shop, Coffee Bruin, is also a clever play on words referring to their basic product, but including a nod to Buich’s seasonal job as head varsity football coach at Riverbank High School. A Bruin, a word for brown bear that's common in fable and folklore, is the RHS school mascot.
Buich is no newcomer to the food service industry, having co-owned and operated the Bull & Bear Whiskey Bar, Taphouse and Restaurant in downtown Monterey CA. They finished closing it down the middle of September last year.
Among many features in the decor of the new shop, Buich said he expects to be able to install barn wood along the west wall. When the fixtures and wiring in the wall are finished, he plans to install tables and chairs and have Wi-Fi available.
