A new coffee shop in downtown Augusta is opening in November with hopes of bringing the community together.
Trellis Coffee Bar, located at 1902 Walton Way, sits squarely within walking distance of several downtown Augusta neighborhoods. Owner Ross McDaniel, a native of Augusta, made this choice intentionally.
“We are from here and born here and raised here and … had always envisioned ourselves not here in Augusta. We would always go visit other places and do other things, and at the end of the day, we have deep roots here.
“We’ve lived in Harrisburg for 10 years and tired of waiting for Augusta to develop. We were like, ‘Why don’t we be a part of it’ and extend our roots even further?”
“You’ve got Summerville, Harrisburg, Midtown, Downtown and the Medical District. All of those things have already existed and they’ve done well. We don’t want to come in and replace them and steal the spotlight,” McDaniel said. “We truly want to serve as a trellis so that those things that are already great can grow even bigger and that is what we are hoping this can be, an anchor spot.”
McDaniel and his business partners started to build hype around the new business with cold coffee cart pop ups in the community during the construction phase. The shop is currently in soft opening and serves a variety of specialty coffees with the hopes to increase its selection in the future to add beer and wine.
“Really what it’s done has allowed people to have a movie trailer version of the cinematic masterpiece that the shop is,” McDaniel said. “We hope we can continue that experience, obviously making the cart to the shop a continuation of each other.”
McDaniel believes it’s important to create the community you want to have.
“We can’t keep complaining about problems in our neighborhoods or problems in our city of Augusta and our community if we are not willing to participate and do something about it. Step one is to be a part and rent and own homes in places you want to see grow,” McDaniel said. “Another thing is to go in and create a space that other people want to be a part of and be a part of the space you want to grow and if this was here, we would want to be a part of it.”
