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(From left) Paix Espresso founders Seth McDaniel and Danny Hodge (Photo courtesy Paix Espresso)
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Paix Espresso is a traveling coffee cart making appearances in the Fan. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
Once or twice a week, Richmonders can spot a black coffee cart with a neon sign popping up around town, the rolling concept outfitted with a La Marzocco espresso machine, Comandante grinder and custom water system. It’s hard not to be curious about the sleek, modern, nomadic caffeinated venture, Paix Espresso.
Danny Hodge and Seth McDaniel are at the helm of the mobile business. The 20-something duo first met working as baristas at Roastology on West Cary Street. Nerding out over everything from their morning coffee routines to preferred flavor profile of beans, the two quickly connected.
“We’re both on the same page with this; we both super got into coffee and wanted to learn everything there is,” says McDaniel, a VCU business graduate. “I mentioned how I wanted to start a cart, and [Hodge] said, ‘Me, too, do you want a partner?’ ” We immediately started building it, and eight months later, we’ve got to this point.”
Averaging around 80 cups per pop-up, the partners have been rolling up to local establishments including High Point Barber Shop, CobbleStore, Order Hair Co. and TBT El Gallo. Originally a customer at High Point, Hodge says that during the process of getting the business up and running, he would sit in the chair and share his vision with his barber, who eventually invited Paix to host its initial pop-up at the shop.
With permission from business owners, the cart can pop up almost anywhere except the central business district and certain parks, which require a permit. Paix has slowly been building a buzz, literally and figuratively, and the small scale of the cart allows its owners to have minimal overhead and a flexible schedule.
“Nobody in Richmond has done this yet, which is really cool,” McDaniel says. “The response has been incredible. We think the coffee scene in Richmond is great, but think it could have added nuance. We’re very into specialty coffee, so really juicy, fruity coffees that don’t taste like coffee. We feel like there’s more space for us.”
The two have a decade of industry experience between them, McDaniel previously roasting for Leesburg’s Goosecup, and Hodge — a Charlottesville native who relocated to Richmond for his wife to attend VCU — formerly working for Milli Coffee Roasters.
The menu at Paix is a tight selection of cafe classics: lattes, cappuccinos, cortados, americanos and espresso. No whipped cream, no mocha drizzle — though there is homemade Tahitian vanilla syrup for those who enjoy a spike of sweetness. They typically offer a specialty drink as well, something fun or seasonally influenced, such as a Brazilian lemonade made with blended whole lemons, coconut condensed milk and water, all strained and topped with espresso.
Size also matters at Paix: “Making the menu, we wanted it to be really traditional, so none of our drinks are over 10 ounces,” Hodge says.
Paix uses milk from Homestead Creamery and sources beans from Junto Coffee in Greenville, South Carolina. The supplier relies on a Colombian blend that has undergone anaerobic thermal shock, a double fermentation process using cold and hot water to ensure the strongest depth of flavor and most potent aromas, a method gaining popularity in the coffee industry in recent years.
“Both of us feel like it’s one of the best coffees we’ve ever had, easily a top three,” Hodge says of Junto. “We’re just trying to find the best coffee and serve it.”
But what might be most captivating about the espresso Paix is pouring is the water they use. Purchasing distilled water, they then add their own recipe of minerals. While the task is tedious, and not one that typical cafes could undertake due to volume, the measure is an extra, specialized touch that sets Paix apart.
“We create our own water specifically for brewing espresso,” Hodge explains. “We add minerals that change how the coffee gets extracted; there’s a whole science about it. Richmond has absolutely horrible water for coffee. It’s really hard water, and it extracts too much from the coffee, so the taste is harsher. So we don’t use that water, we use one that we create.”
And while they take coffee seriously, Hodge and McDaniel don’t want their purist sensibilities to be a turnoff. With a fondness for fruitier, more floral and naturally sweet notes in their coffee, their hope is that by presenting espresso in its simplest form, people can develop a different sense of appreciation for one of the most commonly consumed beverages in the world.
“Some people who have our coffee don’t care at all, and that’s fine, but we want to meet people in the middle,” McDaniel says. “We want people to be really stoked about our product. We want to connect with people and make them feel comfortable talking to us without feeling judged about how into coffee we are, and we want to introduce people to how cool coffee is.”
Paix translates to “peace” in French, the name inspired by the pair’s Christian beliefs and the idea of spreading kindness through coffee.
“We knew we wanted to start a coffee cart and give a cafe experience to Richmond and get our brand out there; we want to roast, that’s our goal, so this is kind of like our starting point,” McDaniel says. The two recently purchased a roaster, he says, and “We’re looking for a place to start roasting. We’ll be doing that very soon, it’s happening way faster than we expected.”
