The story below is from our September/October 2021 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
RND Coffee’s expansion redefines downtown Vinton’s coffee shop experience.
At RND Coffee, there’s always one drink that sparks devotion. For Richard “Pete” Peters, it was the vanilla latte, crafted with a house-made syrup bolstered with Madagascar vanilla bean.
Peters, Vinton’s town manager, began frequenting RND’s Wasena location with his coffee-shop-aficionado teenage daughter in the fall of 2019. He quickly came to appreciate the warm hospitality and inventive beverages that define the RND experience while getting to know owner Quincy Randolph. Soon after, Peters asked for a meeting to discuss RND’s potential expansion as part of Vinton’s continued revitalization plans.
“There are not a lot of coffee options [in Vinton] and none with a traditional café space where it’s open, [with] different tables and spaces that makes a welcoming [place] for individuals,” Randolph says. “We both agreed that Vinton could use a space like that.”
This fall, RND Coffee will fill that void with its house-roasted coffee, signature drinks and an expanded menu of creative café fare, while creating a welcoming community gathering place.
Peters says that, although the town of Vinton considered working with a national coffee shop chain, the preference was to partner with a new, local business that would complement the existing landscape of locally owned restaurants, including Farmburguesa, Macado’s, Dogwood Restaurant, New York Pizza and Our Daily Bread Bakery and Bistro.
“The town wants to be a partner with new businesses. It’s harder to establish relationships with a national franchise—there’s more of a disconnect,” Peters says. “The folks who operate businesses in town and who live in town, we like to have relationships with our pharmacist, our banker, our coffee shop.”
RND’s expansion project was briefly put on hold due to the pandemic, but Randolph is moving forward anew. RND’s Vinton location will be in Vinyard Station, a 12,000-square-foot, multi-business building that was once home to Vinton Motors, a car dealership that was owned and operated by the Vinyard family for more than 70 years. The building was long a cornerstone of downtown but sat vacant for over ten years before being purchased by Dale Wilkinson, president of The Wilkinson Group, who spearheaded the building’s redevelopment.
The town of Vinton and Roanoke County partnered on site improvements, adding landscaping and streetlamps. These modifications complement previous downtown improvement projects, including a new parking lot, sidewalks and hanging lights. RND will be in good company at Vinyard Station; Joe Goodpies, the building’s first tenant, anchors the space with a family-friendly pizzeria.
“Things like RND are going to put us in a better position to have folks come to town and linger,” Peters says. “You can go to the library, have cup of coffee, go to a boutique, you can stay and have lunch at Farmburguesa, and then maybe [see] a show at the farmers market.”
The space itself will be close to twice the size of RND’s Wasena outpost, with seating for around 40 people, as well as a small outdoor patio. To bring more design aesthetic to the space, Randolph tapped Roanoke furniture store Txtur to create unique upcycled furniture, including chairs made with upcycled wood and recycled woven seatbelts.
RND’s Vinton location will offer a similar menu of coffee drinks to that of Wasena, plus one or two exclusive creations, along with kid-friendly options like smoothies. Familiar fruit flavors will abound, but Randolph will also include a chef-inspired smoothie that highlights his fine-dining-chef background and penchant for flavor experimentation.
“I love a really good banana strawberry smoothie,” Randolph says. “But I also think a yuzu smoothie would be really fun as a predominant flavor. I also want to do a vegetal smoothie.”
The Vinton location’s dedicated kitchen will also provide Randolph more opportunity to flex his culinary muscles on the food menu, too. Now that Randolph has guaranteed that the kitchen can be built out for small-time fryer usage, he envisions adding dishes such as fluffy beignets and tater tots with chimichurri aioli to the café fare line-up. Staples from RND’s Wasena menu, such as avocado toast and breakfast bagel sandwiches, will be offered alongside new sandwiches and fun morning pastries.
“There will be significantly more food options,” Randolph says. “It’s not a full-service restaurant, but there are enough options that you could bring your family to have lunch or breakfast here.”
Randolph also hopes to secure a beer and wine license for RND’s Vinton location and intends to offer grab-and-go canned beers from local breweries as well as funky brews sourced from further afield. Overall, the space and offering are shaping up to be in line with exactly what Peters and city council envision for Vinton’s continued revitalization.
“Having a coffee shop—it’s more than just coffee,” Peters says. “It’s more of a social place to be, hang out and linger. What Quincy [plans to] create with RND, his menu and the atmosphere will be a great complement to our existing downtown.”
The story above is from our September/October 2021. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!
