Spill the Beans has been running out of its Augusta Road location long enough that the regulars know to get there before nine on a Saturday if they want a seat.
The shop is owned by Kim Patterson, who opened the original location on Augusta Road in the early 2000s and has since added a second in the North Main neighborhood. Patterson spent years in corporate work before deciding that what she actually wanted to do was run a coffee shop — a move her friends apparently found baffling and that her customers have since validated every morning of the week. She is often in the Augusta Road store before sunrise, pulling shots and doing the math on the day before the first customers push through the door.
What keeps people coming back is not complicated. The coffee is good and the drink menu has a logic to it — a small, well-considered list that doesn’t require a glossary to navigate. The frozen caramel latte is the thing most people mention first, particularly in the warmer months, when lines stretch past the pastry case and out toward the sidewalk. It is sweet without being cloying, and cold in the specific way that makes it difficult to drink at a normal pace. The hot drinks hold up just as well: the flat whites are properly made, the drip is rotated through seasonal selections, and Patterson’s staff knows the difference between espresso that is rushed and espresso that is not.
The pastry situation varies by day, which is part of the charm. Some mornings there are croissants and scones; some mornings the case is a little sparse by eight-thirty. The regulars have learned not to count on any single item. What they do count on is the consistency of the coffee and the fact that the staff, most of whom have been working there long enough to remember your order, will treat you like a person rather than a transaction.
The Augusta Road location is small. There are a handful of tables inside, a couple of chairs near the window, and not much room to expand. On weekday mornings the crowd skews toward neighborhood people — parents walking back from school drop-off, remote workers who live close enough to walk, a few contractors grabbing something before a job. On weekends it fills up fast with people from across the city, some of whom have been making the drive to Augusta Road since Patterson first opened the doors.
The North Main location, which came later, has a bit more room and draws its own crowd from the neighborhoods around it. The two stores share a menu but have different rhythms, and longtime customers tend to have a strong preference for one or the other. Augusta Road people, in particular, talk about their shop with the kind of quiet possessiveness that tends to cluster around places that have been doing the same thing well for a long time.
Drinks run roughly four to six dollars depending on what you order. Neither location takes reservations, obviously, and parking on Augusta Road requires some patience on weekend mornings. Go early, or be prepared to wait and not mind it much.
