Kahwa Coffee opens Fourth Street store after four-year delay
By Breanne Williams
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Apr 18, 2024

Kahwa Coffee Roasting Co. has officially opened its long-awaited store on Fourth Street in St. Petersburg.

The cafe opened Thursday morning at 6601 Fourth St. N. The store is built from reclaimed shipping containers, and unlike many other Kahwa locations, this space does not have an indoor cafe. The location was initially expected to open in 2020. It features a drive-thru and a walk-up window with a handful of tables outside.

Raphael Perrier and Sarah Perrier launched Kahwa in 2006 in downtown St. Pete. Now, the company has 15 retail locations and more than 800 wholesale customers.

The Fourth Street location has been “a long time coming,” according to Raphael Perrier. He told the Tampa Bay Business Journal since first announcing their plans to open on Fourth Street, they have faced a plethora of permitting issues, unforeseen delays with using the shipping containers, two hurricanes and changing flood zones, which significantly altered plans for the site.

“It was a perfect storm, one issue right after another,” Raphael Perrier said. “I have a good relationship with the city, but since 2020, just a lot of things changed and it took a lot longer than any of us were expecting.”

The Fourth Street store will have a full menu and feature coffee, food and non-coffee drinks. There will be bike racks for those in the surrounding neighborhoods who want to bike over and sit outside.

He said he’s grateful for the continued interest in the location from their customers, who he said have reached out nonstop over the past four years wanting an update on when they would open. He joked if he had a penny for every question he’s received about the site, he could retire tomorrow.

The Perriers’ goal is to make Kahwa the largest coffee company in Florida, Raphael said. The knowledge that their product becomes a staple of every community they enter keeps them ever eyeing the horizon for future growth opportunities.

“This is four years in the making and I think it’s going to be fantastic,” Raphael Perrier said. “Sarah and I just tried to not talk about Fourth Street for years as we figured all of this out, but we’re finally here, we can finally talk about it. The excitement behind the whole company, in general, has really been incredible. We get emails and phone calls all day long about that spot and seeing this finally come to life, it makes all the work worth it.”