Inside HiFi by Upshot Coffee. Photo by Blake Shaiper, courtesy of Upshot.
St. Louis-area roaster Upshot Coffee dropped the needle on its third coffee shop this month in Clayton, Missouri, drawing inspiration from Japanese record listening rooms.
Visually tied together by a long, swirling mural — as well as coordinated elements in red, black, white and natural wood — the 1,363-square-foot shop called HiFi centers on a wall of vinyl records and a vintage high-fidelity stereo system.
“The music is a personality of its own in the shop. It will be the first thing you notice when you walk in and hopefully something that sticks with you throughout the day,” Upshot Coffee Co-Owner Eric Peters, a lifelong musician, told Daily Coffee News. “Music has taken me to places I never thought I would get to go, and people I never thought I would get to meet. I love the idea of creating a space specifically intended to bring people together on a mutual goal of sharing and enjoying music together.”
At HiFi. Photo by Blake Shaiper, courtesy of Upshot.
The instruments making coffee at the new bar include a blood red La Marzocco KB90 espresso machine, dual Mahlkönig E65S GBW grinders and a Mahlkönig EK43 for filter coffees, decaf and the company’s premium Mystic Series espressos. Cold brew is slow dripped Kyoto-style. Breakfast and lunch options — such as tartines, sandwiches, burritos and fresh deli items — were designed by chef Travis Garcia.
Mystic and other high-end coffees are roasted in a 2-kilo-capacity Proaster at a 1,250-square-foot production facility established in 2021 just down the street from Upshot’s flagship cafe in Cottleville.
Alongside the Proaster is a 10-kilo Mill City Roasters machine that handles the lion’s share of coffee volume. Sourcing of green coffees continues to focus on concepts such as sustainable agriculture, and equitable and transparent relationships between importers and producers.
The Upshot Coffee roastery. Photo by Blake Shaiper, courtesy of Upshot.
“We are very passionate about offering some of the best coffee we can find,” Upshot Coffee Head Roaster Blake Shaiper, who also painted the mural at HiFi, told DCN. “However, the story of the coffee is crucial to our mission.”
Shaiper turns to importers such as Cofinet, Unblended Coffee and Prime Coffee for high-quality greens, while also seeking potential for direct access to producers in order to forge more meaningful and positively impactful supply chain relationships.
“Each partner specializes in different areas,” said Shaiper. “Our ultimate goal is to visit as many farms as we can on a yearly basis.”
Eric Peters and partner Conor Vanbuskirk founded Upshot with the Cottleville shop and a 1.5-kilo roaster in 2019. In July 2020 the company expanded with its second location in St. Charles, called the Brake Shop, which whole-heartedly embraces moto and car racing culture while paying homage to the 1950s building’s heritage as a brake repair shop.
The Upshot Coffee Brake Shop. Photo by Blake Shaiper, courtesy of Upshot.
“Each of our shops has its own unique identity, a different expression of the things we love and the neighborhoods we serve,” said Peters. “That said, each shop carries through it our endless pursuit to highlight incredible coffee in unique spaces prepared by diverse baristas whose goal above all else is quality and customer service.”
In 2023, the company also established its first two licensed cafes inside local churches, which is a growth strategy it intends to pursue further next year, alongside other initiatives.
“We are stepping into competing in SCA in 2025, getting to origin again and continuing to focus on and promote our direct trade relationship with our partners in Minas Gerais,” Vanbuskirk told DCN. “We are a company that is always moving the goal post on ourselves, so we’ll be working on perfecting our cafe service and quality control. The roasting facility has doubled in the last year, and our goal is to double its output again.”
HiFi by Upshot Coffee is located at 8401 Maryland Avenue in Clayton, Missouri. Comments? Questions? News to share? Contact DCN’s editors here.
Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
