SLO County father-daughter team serve up toasties, coffee at new cafe. ‘Where things grow’
In July 2022, when Greenhouse Coffee Company opened its doors on Grand Avenue in Arroyo Grande, the relationship between the father-daughter team of Mark and Emily Perry was, in Mark’s words, “rocky.”
“Early on, it was a bit of a roller coaster because we have some really strong similarities and some really strong differences,” Mark said. “We found ourselves tripping over each other a little bit, butting heads, and then everything would smooth out for a little while, and then we butt heads again, and then it would smooth out.”
The Perrys had spent more than a year refitting the building — a spacious 3,000-square-foot space on Grand Avenue — and after all the hard work, they were ready to start seeing customers.
Now, Mark said when he looks around his business, he sees “a sum greater than (its) parts.”
Mark, who had previously run a cafe in Ohio 25 years ago with his wife, Cheryl, said he was glad he and his daughter were able to take another stab at the restaurant business.
“We didn’t really get a chance to finish it — we were gonna buy the building and we just weren’t able to pull that off,” Mark said. “So we kind of have always wondered if we were meant to do that again.”
With that goal in mind, Perry found the Arroyo Grande location through a “serendipitous moment” of bumping into the building’s owner at another San Luis Obispo County coffee shop.
After a lease was settled, it was only a matter of assembling the Greenhouse team, starting with his daughter.
“My dad contacted me and was like, ‘Hey, would you want to open a cafe on the Central Coast?’” Emily said. “And I said, ‘Absolutely,’ so I moved back up from Los Angeles and then we started working on it.”
‘Elevated’ food and beverage menu wins over loyal customers, owners say
Emily said food culture and cooking runs in the family. Her grandfather was a chef, her parents owned a cafe and now as general manager of Greenhouse, she has taken a step up from her previous restaurant experience.
With a new coffee shop, Emily said she and her father wanted to create a unique, “elevated” feeling and menu.
“We didn’t want to do breakfast burritos, and we didn’t really want to do bowls or anything like that,” Emily said. “We felt like the Central Coast had plenty of that.”
The solution: toasties, an open-faced sandwich served on slices of bread. Toasties come in several varieties, Emily said, including avocado hummus, chorizo-queso, caprese and almond berry.
Additionally, salads and puddings are also available, according to the Greenhouse website.
As a coffee shop, Greenhouse also serves a standard selection of espresso, americano, cappuccino, drip coffee, pour overs, cold brew and lattes in lavender, vanilla and mocha flavors, the website said. Non-coffee beverages like matcha lattes, chai lattes, golden milk lattes and Aztec sipping coffee are also available.
Coffee is sourced from local roasters in SLO, berries, avocados and eggs from local farms and sourdough bread comes from Grover Beach Sourdough, Emily said.
Everything, down to the ends of loaves of bread being broken down to breadcrumbs, is used to its fullest potential to keep costs down, Emily said.
“We try really hard to use as little waste as possible in our kitchen,” Emily said. “If we run out of one berry, we’re going to use the rest of the berries that we have, instead of kind of going to a secondhand supplier to get something that might not be as great of quality.”
Despite the difficult economic conditions caused by inflation of the past year, Mark said Greenhouse’s locally-sourced menu has kept prices low for both the owners and customers.
“We hit the ground running,” Mark said “We’ve been growing about 5% to 6% a month, which, in six months, amounts to over 30% growth, so we were doing pretty good.”
While Greenhouse is still in the red, Mark said a growing customer base of all ages has given the owners solid footing going forward.
Coffee shop owner also involved in ‘micro entrepreneur’ charity
In addition to its main venture as a coffee shop, Mark’s charitable corporation, Hope United, has a presence in Greenhouse’s building.
Hope United, Mark said, is a charity that promotes “micro entrepreneurs” from around the world, particularly in developing countries.
“I’ve traveled to about 20 nations, and I’ve just seen there’s so many people that would love to have an opportunity to get into the American market,” Mark said. “Through my contacts in these nations, so I started reaching out to entrepreneurs, and we started featuring their products.”
These products include handmade jewelry and artwork, Mark said.
“We haven’t had time since we opened, but we’re going to be expanding that into an online business section,” Mark said. “It’ll be like a mini World Market, but for micro entrepreneurs.”
Between the charitable efforts and the growing customer base, Emily said she’s happy to see the growth of the business and is excited for its future.
“It’s a place where creativity can grow, and friendship can grow, and all of those things like (a) greenhouse, where things grow,” Emily said.
This story was originally published January 25, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
