Surrounding Counties is planning to close in late December. (Jack Jacobs photo)
A 4-year-old Henrico cafe is preparing to serve its last cup of coffee.
Surrounding Counties Specialty Coffee Explorers Club plans to close next month. The coffee shop first opened in the A suite of 8801 Three Chopt Road in fall 2020.
Owner Zach Archibald said he’s winding down the business because its location, a 1,500-square-foot spot in the Westbury Shopping Center next to Freeman High School, was too large and ill-equipped to continue to operate as a high-end coffee house.
Archibald said he found that the space, a former Papa Murphy pizza joint, wasn’t outfitted to do what he wanted to do, though he felt the storefront was a good location geographically.
“The concept itself does work, just not here,” he said. “Specialty coffee has no margins, there’s no item here that you sell that’s like a fountain soda… with a different set of amenities this footprint would have worked.”
Zach Archibald at his shop several years ago. (BizSense file photo)
Archibald, a co-founder and co-owner of Lamplighter Coffee Roasters, said Surrounding Counties was an attempt to bring a city-style coffee experience to a suburban retail strip. He said the experiment would inform a future coffee venture in the region, the details of which he declined to share.
“This was an experiment,” he said. “It’ll take time to analyze the data.”
Surrounding Counties opened early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially the company operated a to-go model selling coffee and breakfast food, and later added indoor seating.
“When I came into the space it was the heart of the pandemic and it wasn’t certain what the landscape of food service was going to be moving forward,” he said. “Luckily, the world opened up around then and we were able to have more of a traditional coffee house experience.”
Kolaches became the cafe’s calling card, Archibald said, and it came up with more than 100 takes on the sweet Czech pastry.
Archibald said that despite problems with the space, the shop started to gain some momentum and create a following after a couple years in business. However, he had to make an unsustainable physical effort to overcome the storefront’s issues, and that eventually caught up with him.
“It’s not sustainable for me to put in the level of effort to make it worth it,” he said.
The last day of business at Surrounding Counties is planned to be Dec. 22. Archibald said he’s planning to hold a send-off party prior to closing the cafe. He announced plans to close Surrounding Counties on social media Monday.
Archibald remains a co-owner of Lamplighter, though he isn’t involved in the company’s day-to-day operations.
I think at the end of the day it’s tough for any business like this to succeed outside of the city. In Carytown it probably would have killed it on Kolaches alone.
come to Carytown! I never had a need to get in Three Chopt during coffee time!
Zach did a great job. I always enjoyed dropping in when I found myself in the area. Check it out before it’s gone, and perhaps reimagine what your neighborhood coffee shop could be (even in the suburbs).
“There’s no high margin product like a soda” said the man in the business of selling beverages.
Location, Location, Location, …