Chris Molieri, spends a lot of his time perfecting and experimenting with different coffee roasts. He diligently blends different flavors and tones for the coffee shop he owns and operates, Greenstreet Coffee Co., and other notable restaurants and cafes.
“We have the classics like the organic French Roast that Metropolitan Bakery sells, and another would be another great place, Famous 4th Street [Delicatessen] on Bainbridge and Higher Grounds in Northern Liberties.” said Molieri, a 2008 business administration alumnus. “So we have about 60 wholesale accounts.”
Greenstreet was founded by Molieri and his brother Tom, a 2009 communications alumnus, in 2012. They started with a commissary kitchen and expanded to a garage roastery on Alter and 20th Streets in 2012, which still serves as their main location.
Thanks to Greenstreet’s passionate customer base, Molieri is opening another location on 15th and Federal Streets on Oct. 7, just less than a block away from the Ellsworth-Federal Broad Street Line SEPTA stop. The opening will feature a collaboration with Brass Monkey Bread, a bakery, from 10 a.m. to sell out.
Customers can purchase bags of Greenstreet’s roasted beans at their flagship location and will be able to do so at the new location as well. Greenstreet also offers coffee delivery subscriptions for customers, letting them pick what they want, with delivery options ranging from weekly to monthly.
“Our focus is on that specialty coffee and the neighborhood here,” Molieri said. “We also kind of latched on to the neighborhood and have become pretty well known and a good actor in the neighborhood, so that’s been kind of cool.”
Greenstreet also participates in philanthropic efforts to better connect with the community they serve, Molieri said. They donate to schools like the Chester A. Arthur School and tap into local fundraising events a couple times throughout the year, depending on the needs of the neighborhood.
The company supports neighborhood artists, like Point Breeze’s Andrew Jevremovic, a sculptor and owner of Octo Studio who collaborated with Molieri to design the new location.
Jevremovic has been a supporter of Greenstreet since its opening and previously designed furniture elements for the company’s flagship location. His art studio neighbors Greenstreet and he frequents the shop as a customer.
“They’re really nice guys, I was really happy to help out my neighbors starting up, so it was a good thing and the cafe is still in nice shape,” Jevremovic said.
Although Jevremovic had full creative reign over the space, Molieri was set on utilizing a hand-picked unique piece of art: a traffic light fixed on green, to help the memorability of the new secondary shop.
“So I figured, if nothing else, you will remember ‘Oh, that’s the place with the traffic light inside,” Molieri said.
This isn’t the first time Molieri has opened a secondary store. In July 2021, he opened a location in West Philadelphia, but it was in poor condition and occupied by a slew of different restaurants before Molieri. He later closed it in 2022.
Molieri, who has been in the coffee business for more than a decade, is excited to have reached the point of owning and operating a newer, more personalized and pristine second store, while still running the Point Breeze flagship location.
Expanding and trying out new designs and roasts have always been a part of Molieri’s bigger picture, he said.
The current product branding is inspired by a mural outside of the original Greenstreet location. The mural depicts green naturalistic designs and black swirl patterns, painted by artist Nicole Saltzer; she also created a custom print for most of Greenstreet’s branding, Sprudge reported.
“Chris absolutely wanted to have another mural in the new space,” Saltzer wrote in an email to The Temple News. “Same concept, just reimagined, more color, more detail. I wanted this mural to be something the surrounding community can appreciate and feel excited about.”
The new cafe’s naturalistic designs echoes Greenstreet’s focus on sustainability. The cafe and roastery makes efforts to produce fair-trade and organic coffee consistently.
Greenstreet utilizes Organic Inspection tests, conducted by Pennsylvania Organic to ensure the product wasn’t treated with any pesticides or chemicals, and are currently up to date with their inspections. The inspection process goes through company invoices and certifications to ensure their beans are accurately labeled as organic.
However, the fair trade certification is a little more complex, as there are multiple fair trade organizations in the United States with different rules and regulations. Fairtrade certified products are marked up and the price difference is then pledged towards funding for healthcare and education in the area where the product was sourced from.
For the forseeable future, Greenstreet’s new location will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 8 a.m.- 2 p.m.
“The store is, at the very least, going to be a showroom for coffee,” Molieri said. “At the very most it’s going to be a hub for the neighborhood, to gather, to have conversation, to have coffee, to have an enlightenment of culture and to bring people together.”
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