Otterbein’s Morning Mugs Coffee is opening a second location at 1642 Beason St. in Locust Point. Morning Mugs is taking over a new retail space that is part of a redevelopment of the former A-1 Drive Shaft Company’s machine shop by Clipper Construction.
Tyler DellaRatta opened Morning Mugs Coffee in 2021 at 15 W. Hughes St. in Otterbein. Morning Mugs is “doing great” but DellaRatta is looking to expand the offerings when it comes to food.
The space in Locust Point has a bakery in the basement, which will be run by Lorena Thompson, and a small kitchen. The food prepared in Locust Point will supply both locations.
The menu will be focused on breakfast burritos. DellaRatta recently lived in San Diego and fell in love with all the breakfast burritos there.
Morning Mugs will offer breakfast burritos with eggs, cheese, potatoes, and different meats and vegetables. The burritos will be served with a side of Peruvian green sauce. It will also serve a French toast crunch wrap with a French toast-inspired tortilla.
The menu will also have breakfast taquitos, croissants, muffins, cinnamon rolls, and Thompson’s pastries of the month.
Morning Mugs will focus on breakfast at first, but DellaRatta hopes to expand into a lunch menu in the future.
DellaRatta likes talking to people and has a background in marketing. While he loves the coffee Morning Mugs serves, he understands there are a lot of good cups of coffee around town, so he wants the personality of his business stand out. “We don’t sell coffee, we sell a good time” is the motto of the business.
“We are brewing smiles,” he said.
Morning Mugs has a game where customers try and guess the color inside the sleeve for a carryout order of coffee or the color inside a mug for dine-in. There are five different colors and customers who correctly guess the right color get 10% off their next order.
DellaRatta enjoys seeing the smiles from customers when they guess right and talked about how it’s a great way to start the day.
The mascot for Morning Mugs, named Muggsy, is a a bear with a coffee bean as a nose. His face is painted on the facade of the new location and he will be prominently featured throughout the new shop.
Morning Mugs has been named the ‘Best Coffee’ by Baltimore Magazine’s Best of Baltimore Reader’s Poll three years in a row.
Morning Mugs uses beans from Kanas City’s Parisi Coffee and its best sellers are its lattes, iced coffees, and hot coffees. DellaRatta noted the lattes are the driving force at Morning Mugs and one of its most popular items is the French Toast Latte.
Morning Mugs also sells traditional coffee drinks and a handful of seasonal specials.
Besides coffee, Morning Mugs offers chai, matcha, iced team, lemonade, an Arnold Palmer, and hot chocolate.
Morning Mugs plans to open its Locust Point location on September 21st. Its hours will be Monday to Friday from 630am to 3pm and Saturday and Sunday from 730am to 2pm.
The new retail space has a handful of tables, a bench, and an ordering counter. The design features exposed brick, exposed ceiling beams, and a roll-up garage door to give the space an inside and outside feel.
The development by Clipper Construction is completing the renovation of three buildings. Clipper Construction’s offices will be above the coffee shop; the middle building has private office suites available for lease; and the other building is a drive-in warehouse for Clipper Construction.
Before photos
