Some food pairings are just meant to be. Burgers and fries. Peanut butter and jelly. Biscuits and gravy. Bacon and eggs. Coffee and donuts. Pie and ice cream.
Pie and coffee? Well, of course.
While it might not be the first combo to come to mind, it's a fitting focus at New Love Coffee and Bean & Pie, one of Kendall Yards' newest spots for sustenance and community connections.
The two-in-one business debuted in April inside a new retail space along Summit Parkway and has quickly become a hub for coffee dates, work meetings, grab-and-go lunches and study sessions with the added benefit of sweet and savory snacks alongside a jolt of java.
"This was originally just going to be New Love Coffee, but sometime in the fall last year Katy Bean, the former owner of Bean & Pie, reached out to me," says owner Ike Bubna. "We were already buying their hand pies for our Liberty Lake and our north locations, and she said, 'Hey, I'm looking to transition out of ownership, and your products and our products work together, are you interested in buying?'"
It just so happens that Bubna and his wife, Tiffany, had also been envisioning their own bakery to complement the roastery and cafe.
"She's actually in pastry school, finishing up, and when the opportunity came up, it was just too good to pass up," Bubna says. "And Bean & Pie already had a Spokane following" due to its presence at some local farmers markets, at which they'll continue to sell.
The new Kendall Yards space features a cheerful palette of bright teal and powder blue, and ample natural light through street-facing windows. Customers can settle into a plush chair or at a table to enjoy one of New Love's specialty lattes, like the oat-milk pistachio cold foam ($6.50-$7) alongside a sweet or savory hand pie ($5.85-$6.25). There's also gluten-free pie cups, gluten-free cookies, and 6-inch pies to-go ($15.50-$16).
All of the cafe's art is by Spokane artist Neicy Frey. In lieu of a more temporary mural painted directly on the wall, Frey completed a multi-panel painting high on the back wall that adds pops of vibrant color via abstract floral shapes. For each of New Love's three locations, Bubna collaborated with a single local artist on the space's design and to display their art on a permanent basis.
After purchasing Bean & Pie, Bubna says he and Tiffany didn't change any of its already popular recipes, yet they hope to expand the menu with even more flavors, like his favorite, oatmeal pie.
"It's kind of like a custard that, while it's baking, the oats all rise to the top and they get crispy, and so it tastes like mapley, sugary oatmeal," he says. "And that will rotate with different toppings on it, one with almonds and coconut and chocolate, and one with berry drizzle over the top, so different flavors you would associate with having in the morning."
While all Bean & Pie's goods are baked offsite at a commercial kitchen in Coeur d'Alene and then frozen for freshness, each of the New Love cafes have turbo ovens to reheat its pies.
New Love Coffee's first outpost launched in early 2022 inside Greenstone Homes' Liberty Lake community center and sales/leasing hub. Early this year, New Love took over the former Ladder Coffee location inside a Canopy Credit Union branch on West Francis Avenue not far from the Five Mile Shopping Center, and which also has a drive-thru.
"It's the only pie-thru in Spokane," Bubna says with a smile.
Before launching New Love, Bubna was working as the commercial leasing manager for Greenstone, and thus had insider knowledge about available space in the recently completed phase of construction on Kendall Yards' east end. Among the other new food-and-drink spots there is Sorella, an Italian fine-dining restaurant, and the forthcoming brick-and-mortar hub for Tamale Box, which also got its start as a farmers market vendor.
Though he spent the last several years working in real estate, Bubna's not green when it comes to coffee roasting. He initially got his start in the industry more than a decade ago while living in Seattle. For a while, he led a nonprofit cafe there called Street Bean Coffee Roasters, which offers jobs and internships to at-risk and homeless youth.
After rediscovering his love for coffee roasting during the pandemic — a period that directly inspired New Love's name — while roasting 1-pound batches to drink at home, Bubna decided to transition back into the industry full time, leaving his position with Greenstone at the end of 2022.
"I probably did about 500 roasts on my roaster at home before ever opening up New Love," he notes. "I just continued to take the things I learned at other roasters and then just kept tweaking things until I was happy with what I was doing. And then I had to scale it up to our big roaster, which does about 100 pounds an hour."
To stock New Love's three locations, including its selection of bagged coffee, Bubna spends every Tuesdays at an offsite roasting facility. On other days, he's often posted at the Kendall Yards' location, which is near his family's home in the West Central neighborhood.
New Love's coffee beans are purchased via a Portland importer called Shared Source, which works with coffee farmers who use sustainable and regenerative agriculture practices to protect the delicate environments where coffee is grown.
"They're all small farmers in Colombia and Guatemala, and so for the most part what you'll see rotating through from us is single-origin coffee from those countries, but we do have some African coffee," Bubna says. "On a regular basis we have three to four different options."
Since opening, New Love Coffee and Bean & Pie has been a buzzy spot throughout the day. Bubna credits not only the quality of the coffee beans he roasts each week, but the friendliness of a core barista team who've been with him since the start.
"It's the relationships," he says. "The staff here puts a huge emphasis on connecting with customers, and I like to joke that we're trying to caffeinate them with kindness, not just caffeine." ♦
New Love Coffee + Bean & Pie • 1102 W. Summit Pkwy. • Open Sun 7 am-5 pm, Mon 6 am-5 pm, Tue-Fri 6 am-8 pm, Sat 7 am-8 pm • newlovecoffee.com
