MOLINE, Illinois -- If you haven't had your caffeine fix for the day, you're in luck. There's another new coffee shop in the Quad Cities that that just opened.
A new Starbucks opened today, Oct. 1, at the corner of 7th Street and John Deere Road. This marks the ninth QC coffee shop development within the past year alone. It's also the first of two new Starbucks in Moline in addition to the other John Deere road and Hy-Vee locations. The other is being built on the corner of 41st Street and Avenue of the Cities next to the new IH Mississippi Valley Credit Union.
However, it's not just corporate coffee. A lot of the local shops are small businesses.
Susanne Knutsen, the Economic Development manager for the City of Davenport, said she's seen a big uptick in small business loans. Several of these loans are for coffee shops.
"We’ve definitely seen it seems like a big increase," Knutsen said. "If there's been anything in Davenport recently, we've seen new hotels and new coffee shops."
The Quad City area is in the middle of a coffee boom, and it's not just the big corporate stores. Family-owned shops have popped up on both the Illinois and Iowa side. One of them is The Brewed Book in Davenport.
"My son is my partner, and neither he or I had any experience making coffee," Tony Fuhs, owner of The Brewed Book, said. "I've never run a business."
Fuhs said he had a vision for a coffee shop and used bookstore. After some prompting from his doubtful sons, he opened the shop on Jan. 1, 2018.
"There's niche markets," Ray Forsythe, Planning and Development director for the City of Moline, said. "You have to figure out ways to survive."
Several new shops echo this sentiment by combining coffee with other themes. The Brewed Book is a used bookstore that aspires to include board games. Aroma Coffee in Davenport is inside a floral shop called The Green Thumbers. Jaded Java in East Moline serves craft coffee cocktails.
"The used bookstore coffee shop, to my knowledge, is unique to the QC," Fuhs said.
"Not everybody likes to go to the bars or the main restaurant," Forsythe said. "It’s a great vibe."
Forsythe said he's not concerned about how the chain stores will affect the locally-owned shops.
"I think Starbucks has a clientele that’s not necessarily similar but different than some of the smaller ones," Forsythe said. "I think there's room for more."
Here is a list of the most recent coffee shop developments:
- Starbucks on Avenue of Cities – not yet open
- Starbucks by Unity Point
- Coffee Envie
- Starbucks in Bettendorf
- Redband Coffee Co. (expansion)
- The Brewed Book
- Java Lab Grind and Dine Cafe
- QC Fuel
- 392 Caffe (expansion in Oh So Sweet)
- East Moline Coffee Co.
- Coffee Revolution
- Energized Cafe
- Jaded Java
- Panini and Friends
- Java Java Cafe (new owners)