HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) - Jaray Wilson and partner Devyn Keith opened Dark Side coffee in a pandemic on a side of Huntsville not known for coffee shops, and they’re already thinking about another one.
But it wasn’t easy.
“From the price of beans to the price of equipment to the price of people, every element was increased,” Keith said. “Nothing was cheaper. Our commitment to do it this year was when we projected Huntsville to be in another space and place, but the world changed overnight.”
“Crazy may be the word for it,” the 32-year-old Wilson said. “It’s absolutely a gutsy move. We’ve had a ton of people to ask the same question. Why? What were we thinking? We just knew it was time.”
“We wanted to be part of the change we wanted to see,” Wilson said. “We wanted to open for the community and it’s been a blessing ever since.”
New Black business owners usually tap into the network of experience in the community, Keith said. Somebody knows somebody who ran a place like yours or knows someone who worked in one. But experience in coffee shops was limited. “We were isolated,” he said. “We were new to the market. We didn’t have the connections that other business owners were blessed to have.”
Keith, 33, and Wilson are north Huntsville natives, and they say the area is emerging from a “stigma.” But it is emerging. The coffee shop sits beside a new art gallery in a refurbished business center at the intersection of north Memorial Parkway and Oakwood Avenue. The county just opened a service center on another corner of the same intersection, and the city just bought another 14 acres farther north on the Parkway for redevelopment.
So far, the partners say the coffee shop is working. A visitor can confirm the coffee is good and the menu tasty. Keith and Wilson believe things will keep getting better, and they’re backing that belief with plans for a second location farther north. In a nod to pandemic reality, this one will have a drive-through window. The current shop has outdoor seating, but it doesn’t have a window.
“If you’re a business owner now, you have to be thinking about car interaction,” Keith said.
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