After peddling ice pops around Gainesville for the past six years, the founder of The Hyppo Gourmet Ice Pops will open a Midtown coffee shop next week.
Wyatt’s Coffee, located at 16 NW 18th St., Unit 120, is scheduled to open Thursday, where The Hyppo’s Midtown location once was, owner and UF alumnus Stephen DiMare said.
Selling coffee, tea, pastries and about 60 types of chocolate bars, the cafe will be open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., he said.
In a city already teeming with local coffee shops, DiMare said there can never be too much caffeine near campus.
“I would have loved to have just another option (for coffee),” he said, referring to his time as a student.
DiMare said the coffee, which costs between $2.50 and $4, will be sourced from seven roasters, four of which are from Florida. The chocolate bars, to be imported mainly from Brooklyn and Los Angeles, will come in flavors like white chocolate, coffee and doughnut milk chocolate. Those will cost between $5 and $10.
For the first ten days of business, DiMare will offer one free cup of coffee or tea per day per person, he said. And until the end of November, he will offer buy-one-get-one-free promotions.
“People like nice things, so this would be a great thing to come and try,” he said.
The name of the shop, he said, references a sheriff from the 1800s named Wyatt Earp who fought off bandits. In DiMare’s mind, the area where UF’s campus ends and Midtown begins represents the “final frontier,” with Wyatt’s Coffee emerging as an enforcer.
He also just really likes the sound of the name.
“I love that name, and I think it would be a nice name for a child,” he said. “But I don’t have a child. I have a coffee shop.”
Casey Wooster, 24, said she typically chooses independent coffee shops over national chains, so she is excited to try Wyatt’s.
“It’s an experience,” the UF museum studies masters student said. “Not just a tool to keep me awake in school.”
