Ironclad Coffee Roasters, which has cafes in Shockoe Bottom and western Henrico, is planning to open a Lynchburg outpost. (Jack Jacobs photo)
A few years after attending his first Liberty University football game, Ryan O’Rourke is now making a play of his own in Lynchburg.
O’Rourke’s Ironclad Coffee Roasters is preparing to open a cafe not far from Liberty’s campus. It’ll be the third location for Ironclad, and the first to open outside the Richmond area.
O’Rourke’s passion for college sports, particularly football and basketball, set the stage for his brand’s first out-of-town expansion. He and his wife have become supporters of Liberty’s athletics program in recent years, which spurred an attachment to Lynchburg.
“We’ve come to love Lynchburg as a town, and with the friends and connections we’ve made at LU over the last several years it made sense to make it the place for our third cafe,” O’Rourke said in an email.
The relationship with the Flames started because the couple, who are University of South Florida alumni, wanted to have a team to root for that was closer to home.
Ryan O’Rourke
“It has been nearly impossible to stay invested in our alma mater’s athletics programs living so far away for the last two decades. So I had been hoping to find a Virginia school we could ‘adopt’ as our school,” O’Rourke said.
Liberty became that school after O’Rourke walked away impressed from a fall 2020 football game he attended with a friend. O’Rourke said his family now makes 15 or more trips to Lynchburg a year, not only to attend Liberty sports games but also to visit the area for outdoor excursions.
“It’s become very much like a second home for us as a family,” he said.
The Lynchburg cafe is slated to open in either late November or early December at Candlers Station shopping center, which is at 3700 Candlers Mountain Road and close to the university’s campus. Ironclad has taken over two storefronts in the center, which have been combined into one nearly 3,300-square-foot space.
“We needed a good bit of square footage to accomplish what we need out of this cafe, so we took those two units and knocked down the wall which once separated the two,” O’Rourke said.
O’Rourke hopes Ironclad will appeal to both university students and Lynchburg residents. While the layout is still being worked out, he said the cafe will likely have seating for more than 60 people. It will also have an on-site bakery, as is the case with the company’s two Richmond-area cafes in Shockoe Bottom and western Henrico.
O’Rourke declined to share the costs associated with opening the Lynchburg location.
Ironclad roasts its own coffee at a facility on Ackley Avenue in Henrico, and will transport coffee to the Lynchburg spot to be sold there.
Ironclad also licenses its concept to three Ironclad-branded cafes at Richmond International Airport run by Delaware North Corp. Those cafes opened last year.
The first Ironclad cafe opened at 1805 E. Grace St. in Shockoe Bottom in 2018. In 2022, Ironclad opened a western Henrico location at 2100 John Rolfe Parkway.