Sunday morning brunch at 821, the wait is always long like the Portlandia episode ‘Brunch Village.’ The food and vibes are always worth the wait and the coffee is delicious.
Sunday morning brunch at 821, the wait is always long like the Portlandia episode ‘Brunch Village.’ The food and vibes are always worth the wait and the coffee is delicious.
It’s definitely not just some Sysco coffee brand, that’s for sure. So where does their coffee come from?
The Camel has this stuff too? Belmont Food Shop, Metzger Bar & Butchery and every market in the city?
Well, it’s none other than Black Hand Coffee.
If you live in the city of Richmond, you have seen the Black Hand Coffee symbol, somewhere, somehow.
The shop is situated on a quaint neighborhood corner in the Museum District. It looks like a simple little spot, but don’t be fooled; it’s a powerhouse.
The shop originally opened up in 2009 on Sheppard St. across from the 7-11 and Caliente. It was there until 2012 and is currently located at 3101 Patterson Ave. Owner Clay Gilbert bought the shop in 2009 from the original owner when the shop had only been open for less than a year.
He kept the original name, symbol and most of the original coffees.
In 2012, Gilbert had the option to renovate an old laundry mat space on Patterson.
“We didn’t really gain any space necessarily but we were able to move to a nicer area, more in a neighborhood getting away from that whole mess over there,” said Gilbert.
They have a ton of neighborhood regulars that come and buy their bags of coffee for home or for a cup before work. Their coffee roaster is located in the shop right by the little seating area so you can see it being roasted in front of you.
Since it’s such a small space and with their large capacity of wholesale, they are moving their roaster to a space in Scott’s Addition. All of their roasting and packaging will be done there and there will be a showroom for people to see how different coffee methods are done.
This will allow for more seating space in the shop as well as more production. It will make life easier for the Black Hand crew to be able to focus solely on the shop and solely on coffee production at their new roaster space.
Black Hand coffees consist of four to five different coffees: Ethiopian, Brazil, Sumatran, Mexican, Nicaraguan and occasionally other specialties.
Their beans can be found at just about every market in the city, Ellwood Thompson’s and the Short Pump Whole Foods.
Aside from their massive wholesale business, they also do tons of beer collaborations with breweries around the city.
“I have a background in wholesale craft beer distribution,” said Gilbert. “We did Hardywood’s Christmas Morning, Triple Crossing’s Skeleton a Pumpkin Coffee Stout back in the fall. We just did one with Strangeways which was Coffee in Bed, a Pecan Double with Coffee.”
Currently they are working with Triple Crossing aging green coffee beans in bourbon barrels from Kentucky. The coffee will sit in the barrels for two months.
“We’re going to roast it and to try to pull some of the bourbon into the bean,” said Gilbert. “Green coffee is very absorbent, it will pick up anything.”
When coffee beers are made, the coffee is added to the beer in a cold liquid concentrate or in a French press grind which gets added into the mash before they start brewing. It depends on how the brewery likes to do things, says Gilbert.
It’s hard to believe that Black Hand, a tiny little shop. is such a coffee giant in town, but they are able to pull it all off. Most of the crew at the shop has been working there since the beginning, so it’s a very tight knit business.
Black Hand’s menu is very straightforward: coffee, iced coffee, chai latte and dirty chai latte. The dirty chai is very popular.
“Dirty chai is two shots of espresso, the chai powder that we use and milk, almond, whole whatever you want,” said Gilbert.
There is a little bit of food, all locally sourced: bagels, pastries, cookies and muffins. You can get a bagel or English muffin with cream cheese, hummus or egg and cheese.
“It’s pretty simple because we mostly want to focus on the coffee,” said Gilbert.
Once the roaster is moved sometime this month, there will be more space and less noise.
From the shop to their mass wholesale around Richmond to their beer collaborations, there’s no stopping Black Hand.
The coffee is no joke, it’s phenomenal.
