Admittedly, Small Town Coffee Co. is best known for its coffee. After all, that’s what earned the Kapaa coffee shop an impressive accolade from Sunset’s Insider Guides, which proclaimed: “Small Town Coffee serves possibly the best lattes in the world.”
Admittedly, Small Town Coffee Co. is best known for its coffee.
After all, that’s what earned the Kapaa coffee shop an impressive accolade from Sunset’s Insider Guides, which proclaimed: “Small Town Coffee serves possibly the best lattes in the world.” That made the owners so proud, they put it on a T-shirt.
But the food is gaining a following as well.
“Most of the business is for breakfast, but lunch is picking up more and more,” said co-owner Anni Caporuscio.
“We use as much fresh food as we can,” she explained. “We grow herbs ourselves,” and serve “anything we can do that’s homemade,” such as salsas and pestos.
“We do all our own baking, too.” she said.
Caporuscio’s favorite breakfast sandwich is the Pig in an Apple Tree ($7.50), which features layers of warm bacon, thin slices of Granny Smith apple and cheddar cheese, piled on a toasted sesame bagel with cream cheese.
The meat and cheese was beautifully balanced by the crisp sweetness of the apple. But best of all was the bagel: It was crunchy and chewy and everything a bagel should be but so often isn’t.
Since February, Small Town Coffee has been serving bagels made by Kapaa bagelry Ya Quddos.
“They’re vegan, organic, locally made, traditional New York-style bagels,” Caporuscio said.
Many such local products are featured in the witty and occasionally hilarious menu. Breakfast offerings range from the Infamous El Guapo, Italian Scallion, We Found Nemo and Eggstra Terrestrial, to the popular Happy Hippy, featuring Anahola Granola. Many of the recipes are staff creations.
“I want their creativity, and for them to be invested in it,” Caporuscio said of the crew.
Creativity runs amok at Small Town Coffee, where the ambiance is funky, fun and relaxed. Quirkiness abounds and apparently multiplies — the metal owl sculpture that greets customers was recently joined by Bruce, a massive land shark.
The interior is cozily crowded with mismatched chairs, the walls filled with colorful paintings by staff and customers. Sly signs abound. The dishes can be charitably described as vintage — “everything’s either donated or thrift store,” Caporuscio reported proudly.
On a recent Saturday morning, a never-ending line of customers streamed through, greeting old friends or making new ones. A family of vacationers, grateful to be out of the Canadian winter, chatted cheerfully with locals waiting for their orders, while earnest-looking writers tapped away on laptops, taking advantage of the free WiFi.
Outside, a pyrographic artist held court on the wooden deck, which curves around a fish pond, crowded with greenery. Folks talked story at benches and chairs clustered under canopies, while a side porch sheltered an impromptu didgeridoo and guitar jam session.
Caporuscio bought the original Small Town Coffee in 2006 with co-owners Jeremy and Julie Hartshorn. After the coffee shop’s move in 2011 from its original home in the blue building just down the highway, the Hartshorns ratcheted down their involvement to focus on their other venture, the Bandwagon.
The Hartshorns are still “backhand partners, not quite silent,” Jeremy Hartshorn quipped. “Anni’s rockin’ it here.”
“They do the things I’m scared to do, like taxes and Costco runs,” Caporuscio explained with a laugh.
The move, which the co-owners described as involuntary and daunting, turned out to be a blessing.
The ordeal was alleviated by the outpouring of support from the community, Hartshorn said. “The customers came and built this place. It was a huge volunteer effort.”
And the location was an improvement, offering plenty of parking and a generous outdoor space.
“It’s been so much better,” Hartshorn said. “The shop is thriving instead of just surviving.”
Moving also meant they could design the kitchen and counter area, rather than adapting to someone else’s vision.
“It allows us to be more creative. Plus, this has a better dance floor behind the counter, and I think that’s important,” Caporuscio said with a smile.
The coffee shop is known as a place for live music — recent Friday night events have included an accordionist and zydeco band — but the hootenanny and open mic nights are on hiatus.
Other than that recent change, it’s business as usual at Small Town Coffee — and that’s just fine.
“The beauty of a local coffee shop or watering hole is you have your place,” Caporuscio said. “It’s supposed to be predictable and reassuring.”
That’s the backbone of Small Town Coffee.
“Coffee shops are built on morning routines,” she explained. “And morning routines — you don’t mess around with ‘em.”
Small Town Coffee is located at 4-1613 Kuhio Highway, in the Kauai Products Fair at the north end of Kapaa. It is open from 5:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; the kitchen is open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information, call 821-1604.
