Culinary Architecture Cafe Opens in Hollins Market
Culinary Architecture (CA), which has a Pigtown market offering artisan groceries, to-go foods, and catering services, opened Culinary Architecture Cafe this month at 875 Hollins St. in Hollins Market. The 350 sq. ft. cafe is in the newly-redeveloped Lion Brothers Building within The Grid, an innovation space from University of Maryland BioPark.
CA owners Piper Booher and Sylva Lin told SouthBMore.com that they originally eyed the Lion Brothers Building when looking for a space for CA, but eventually decided to move forward with the Pigtown location. However, they decided to pursue the space for a second location when the University of Maryland Baltimore BioPark, which is a catering client of CA, recruited Booher and Lin last year to open a cafe in The Grid.
To get to CA Cafe you have to walk into the building and into The Grid, but Booher and Lin are hoping to add to-go windows using the exterior windows that face S. Poppleton St. CA Cafe has an order counter and a few bar seats, and will soon be adding tables for dining in.
CA Cafe will be open Monday through Friday from 8am to 5pm. It will serve a “simple” coffee menu using products from Lavazza and Charm City Coffee Roasters, which will be used to make nitro cold brew. It will also serve Wild Kombucha on tap and homemade hot chocolate which they noted uses real chocolate. Customers will have the option to order coffee and hot chocolate drinks in waffle shots, a small cup made of waffle and lined with chocolate.
CA Cafe will offer many of CA’s daily food offerings including sandwiches, Aussie pies, sausage rolls, flatbreads, salads, soups, and cookies. Many of the foods will be prepped at CA’s larger kitchen. With earlier hours than CA, CA Cafe will serve breakfast foods and pastries.
CA Cafe will typically be run by one person who will rotate there from CA.
Booher and Lin, who are both residents of nearby Union Square, are very big believers in SoWeBo. “There is so much untapped potential over here,” they said. “Pigtown has been very good to us.”
The team was also excited to talk about investments coming to Baltimore St. and the proposed redevelopment of Hollins Market by Scott Plank.
Booher and Lin are hoping CA Cafe will be popular not only with workers at the Lion Brothers Building and University of Maryland Bio Park, but also with neighbors of Hollins Market. They are hoping to fill the need for the “lack of coffee shops in the neighborhood.”
About the Author: Kevin Lynch
Founder and Publisher of SouthBmore.com, longtime resident of South Baltimore, and a graduate of Towson University. Diehard Ravens and O's fan, father of three, amateur pizza chef, skateboarder, and "bar food" foodie. Email me at Kevin@InceptMM.com and follow me on Twitter at @SoBoKevin.
