by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Breaktime Gourmet Coffee and Ice Cream is expanding to keep pace with growth inside Independent Square.
The cafe has offered coffee, ice cream and sundries from the office building’s first floor since 1972. Now owners Said and Samira Samaan have doubled the size of the store and expanded their offerings to include gifts, greeting cards, snacks and other essentials.
The husband and wife owners started plotting the expansion when sundry shop Downtown Emporium closed its doors in Independent Square last November. Breaktime’s business took a noticeable uptick according to Said.
“We saw longer lines and a lot of new faces,” he said.
Those new faces weren’t just old Emporium customers. Samaan noticed the building filling up from his first-floor vantage point. Said gathered some intelligence from the departing Emporium management. He found out what items were most in demand and made a mental note to offer them in his store.
To make room for their new inventory, the Samaans leased the empty office behind Breaktime — the old home to La Mee the Florist — and knocked out the wall between the spaces. The expansion doubled the cafe’s square footage to 1,400, and provided the Samaans with needed storage space.
The expansion also let Said open a door into the building’s north hallway, which should increase the store’s traffic, he said.
The Samaans spent $50,000 on the expansion. But the extra business picked up since Emporium left has Said optimistic that the expansion will pay for itself. The Samaans also hired two additional employees to keep up with the extra business.
“So far, so good,” said Said. “Hopefully when the holidays come around, it will create a lot of demand for the gift items.”