IPSWICH — Although there is no crayon color called “Little Wolf blue,” the Little Wolf Coffee joint roastery has moved their café and filled it with their signature — and recognizable — blue.
To create a more welcoming area for customers to enjoy their drinks and treats, Little Wolf Coffee recently decided to make separate spaces for their café and roastery.
The café portion of the business has moved just across the parking lot. The building is now filled with Little Wolf’s signature blue across the walls, tables, and modern-style chairs.
The new addition opened on Thursday, July 28. Within days, it was bustling with “new faces and old faces,” said co-owner Melissa Bartz. “We really wanted to be able to have more people in the café again.”
She described the new “gathering space” as filled with “natural light” and “purpose.”
“We wanted it to be something that was unique to us— our branding and color blue,” she said. “You know it is our café.”
Their hours will remain the same in the new café. However, there is a possibility of an upcoming addition of Sunday hours.
The addition to the space comes with the increase in quantity of pastries and the new menu addition of pour-overs.
Their messaging, branding, and values were solidified years ago, when Bartz and her partner of twelve years, Chris Gatti — the other co-owner — first began their story.
The couple were living in Boston but were utterly disappointed in the coffee scene.
After some years spent in Seattle — adoring and obsessing over coffee — Bartz and Gatti had learned of the wonders of “coffee’s natural capabilities.”
“We went down this rabbit hole about learning about everything coffee. From brewing it, to espresso, to roasting it,” Bartz said.
Bartz left the finance world, Gatti quit his job working in taxes, and the two began looking in Boston for locations for their own coffee shop.
They soon stumbled on Ipswich.
Growing up in a small town in Connecticut, Bartz was quick to realize the small-town charm of Ipswich. This was a major factor in their ultimate decision to land within town borders.
“It was powerful and really important to us to have a small town that could stand behind us and that we could grow with,” Bartz said.
This sense of community has only grown in importance to the co-owners.
“It is the aspect of community that was more important than I expected — the value of how much people want to help you. The challenges and learning how to cope with the challenges,” Bartz said.
They found an old garage space with large, opening doors, and the Little Wolf Coffee café and roastery opened nearly seven years ago.
A unique “little wolf” stencil representing their Siberian husky, River, soon became their iconic logo.
More recently, the little wolf stencil has been joined by the “tiny wolf” — their younger pup, Felix.
“Like most dog owners, we are obsessed, Bartz laughed. “[Felix] couldn’t be left out.”
That stencil now adorns sweatshirts, dish towels, mugs, shirts, baby onesies, and more.
Following a global pandemic, all small businesses faced numerous challenges and difficulties. People stayed home for months, stopped physically going into work and school, and stopped ordering out.
However, the Little Wolf Coffee shop also found numerous perks.
The coffee shop has developed a large following of loyal customers, mostly from High Street Studios — the dance school next door that moved in in the midst of the pandemic — and from people working from home.
“Having a small business during COVID has made us a much stronger couple, more capable of handling challenges,” Bartz said.
She and Gatti have maintained their primary goal — to make their loyal customers feel welcome and comfortable in their shop.
“I think it is definitely our passion for the coffee, and also our passion for the community,” Bartz said. “A coffee shop that people felt they could come to, that everyone would have a spot, and you don’t feel that you are not welcome.”
“It is really special to us that we are a part of so many people’s lives that live in Ipswich,” she added.