In February, Ironclad Coffee Roasters will open a West End location with drive-thru service. (Photo courtesy Ironclad Coffee Roasters)
If there’s one thing Ironclad Coffee Roasters founder Ryan O’Rourke knows like the back of his hand, it’s coffee.
“I started roasting from home quite a few years ago, when we were living in Ireland, because I couldn’t find coffee that I liked at the time there,” O’Rourke recalls. “I was like, ‘Hey I’m just going to start roasting my own coffee and doing it the way I like it,’ and it became an obsession for me.”
The multilevel Shockoe Bottom cafe, located in a former firehouse at 1805 E. Grace St. and known for its craft-roasted specialty coffee and old-school approach, debuted in 2018. While Richmonders have been sipping Ironclad's Bare-Knuckle Espresso blend and noshing on its breakfast galettes and cardamom buns, the buzzy venture is heading to the suburbs and expanding with a second location in the West End.
O'Rourke is taking over the vacant Bruster’s ice cream store at 2100 John Rolfe Parkway and converting the space into a grab-and-go coffee shop. Named Ironclad West End, the 1,200-square-foot location will offer both drive-thru and walk-up service.
“I had wanted to do a drive-thru concept quite a while ago,” O’Rourke says. “Actually, it was something I was looking at in some form even before we opened the Grace Street cafe.”
In 2017, O’Rourke went searching for an ideal location for the drive-thru vision but came up short. With the idea in the back of his mind since then, he went on a quest early this year to find the perfect spot for the company's second location.
Having known the previous tenants at Bruster’s, O’Rourke was already familiar with the location and building. Ironclad's West End sister shop is aiming to open on Valentine’s Day 2022. And while the hours have yet to be determined, they will be based on demand; the shop could open as early as 6 or 6:30 a.m. daily.
Due to the layout of the building, the space lacks indoor seating capacity, but O’Rourke says customers shouldn't fret.
“Obviously we can’t do [sit-down service], but what we can do is give the same level of quality with the drinks, the food, the customer experience and customer service,” he says, noting that there will be outdoor seating to accommodate about 50 patrons.
Ironclad is focused on quality, O'Rourke says, and they try to offer the best locally sourced ingredients, even down to the milk they use, which arrives in glass jugs from South Mountain Creamery.
“We’re not here just to make tons of money and maximize the profits, and the glass jug is a great symbol of that,” O’Rourke says.
Expect to see a virtually identical core menu in terms of drinks and food items, along with a handful of additions only available at the West End outpost; there will be Shockoe-only menu items as well.
“The regulars will have their cafe that they go to more often, but every once in a while, if they’re in this part of town or that part of town, they can hop in and try the special thing that’s only here or only there,” O’Rourke says. “We want to kind of keep it fun and have some location-specific items. What we’re looking to do [at the West End cafe] is provide the same meticulous quality and service."
The term "ironclad" means to be so firm and secure as to be unbreakable, and O’Rourke’s ironclad promise is to provide the highest quality of customer care.
“We want to give people a memorable experience that they can’t get anywhere else, and we’re trying to replicate that as much as possible at the new location,” O’Rourke says.
Since customers won’t be able to enjoy the ambience of sitting inside as they would at the Shockoe Bottom cafe, O’Rourke plans to compensate for that by doing some things he describes as a "little unconventional" in order for people to have that experience as they sit in their cars, walk up or sit at the outside tables.
“There’s going to be some special things that we do to sort of loop in that experience, even though it’s going to be a different format,” he says. “There’s interesting and unique things to come.”
