Café Kubal will open a new location across from the Niagara Mohawk building on Water Street around Thanksgiving.

The Water Street store will be Café Kubal’s fourth location in the Syracuse area and its second downtown location. The cafe also has locations on University Avenue near Syracuse University, in Eastwood and downtown on South Salina Street. The owner of Café Kubal, Matt Godard, said he was excited for the opportunity to open an additional downtown storefront.

“I thought it was a really good time to be a part of a developing new neighborhood and a new community,” he said.

Participation and revitalization of the community are motives central to all of Café Kubal’s developments. As a part of the company’s efforts to be a part of the community, the new location will feature a retro Art Deco design to match that of the Niagara Mohawk building, Godard said.

While Café Kubal’s other stores feature a more rustic repurposed look, the new location might have an old-fashioned soda bar and a retro Chemex brewer from the Art Deco period. It may even boast an old jukebox too, Godard said.

“(The new location) is right across from the Art Deco building so we want to bring those elements into the cafe. We’re refurbishing and repainting a lot of retro elements,” he said.

Hueber-Breuer, a Syracuse-based company, will handle the construction. Godard said he’s excited to be working with the Breuer family on the building, since they have also been known to contribute to improving the Syracuse area.

The new location is close to Creekwalk Commons, so it already has a natural customer base in the apartment building, said Becky Benedict, Café Kubal’s regional manager.

“I talked to a customer in the cafe who lived in Creekwalk and he seemed really excited about it,” Benedict said. “I think people are definitely excited. I think it’s going to be an awesome new place especially for the students living in Creekwalk.”

Brad Stalter, a realtor who works in Creekwalk Commons, has already received positive feedback from some residents.

“I think the cafe is going to do really well in that location. A ton of people will now have access to this coffee shop. The tenants said they love Café Kubal and are excited about this opportunity,” he said.

In addition, the new location will benefit from infrastructure that Godard set up when he expanded from two to three cafes.

“When we went from two stores to three, in terms of logistics and administrative bandwidth, we expanded beyond the capability of just one more store,” he said. “Our roaster, our kitchen, our cooks and our existing management team can handle a lot more than the Creekwalk Commons expansion. We have room to grow.”

Given the size of the business, traditional advertising is too expensive, Christina Trout, the marketing manager, said. She plans to do some physical flyers to put in the other cafés, but will mostly rely on social media and blog posts on the website.

Godard said he hopes the new location will be open in time for pumpkin spice season, but there was no finish date written in stone, he said.

Published on September 15, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Jake: acappucc@syr.edu