By Sterling McGinn
Locals have long anticipated the opening of the coffee shop and Mexican restaurant in the former Falls Hotel on Newberry Avenue.
The wait is over: The Newberry Coffee Company opened its doors to the public on Tuesday, May 20, and the restaurant grand opening will follow on Wednesday, May 28.
Entrepreneur Duke Patel, who owns America’s Best Value Inn on M-28, purchased the iconic and historic building from previous owner David Kenny in June 2021. Patel’s nephew, Raj Patel, is lead barista at the Newberry Coffee Company and sourced all the coffee beans – from Columbia, India, Sumatra, and Peru.
By 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, the brand-new coffee shop had filled more than 80 orders.
“People are excited about the lattes – the signature lattes, especially,” Raj Patel said. “Our drip coffee is really good, too.”
Raj said he “grew up around coffee”; his father owned several Dunkin’ Donuts franchises.
“Dad’s whole thing was that you build a community over coffee,” Raj said. “He had those Dunkin’s, but people came in there just as much to hang out and talk and just be in the community. That’s my dream for this place as well.”
Raj Patel has a friend who says it this way: “Better therapy happens in cafes and coffee shops than it does in a therapist’s office,” he said. “Somebody’s having a rough day; you grab them a cup of coffee and say ‘Just tell me about it.’ And it changes everything.”
The coffee shop is open daily from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., and will offer appetizers like chicken wings and French fries from 2 – 5 p.m.
“I don’t want to waste that space for half a day and just close the door,” Duke Patel said.
Both the restaurant and the coffee shop will be open year-round. The coffee shop is online at newberrycoffeeco.com, and will eventually accept online orders for pick-up.
One of the specials offered in the coffee shop is the purchase of a Newberry Coffee Company mug for $15 and you become a member of the “Mug Club.” For the purchase of a mug, you will receive unlimited $1 drip refills.
“I am excited for us, and I am excited for this building and the town,” Duke Patel said. “I want this to be a family place. I want everybody to think this is their place just as much as mine.”
How it happened
Duke Patel, whose homebase is in Nebraska, operates several small businesses with his brother, mainly in their home state. Duke Patel first came to Newberry eight years ago to purchase America’s Best Value Inn.
One of his employees suggested the vacant Falls Hotel property as a potential business opportunity.
“I came and looked at it—it is a beautiful building—solidly built,” Patel said. “I thought we could take it and do something with it.”
The COVID-19 pandemic paused the project for a couple of years. Patel didn’t want the building to just stand idle, so he began fixing the structure while still unsure what sort of business to open there.
He decided to open a coffee shop in one end of the building and visualized a specialized restaurant on the other side.
“I thought, what could we bring to Newberry that would be different and something people would appreciate,” Patel said. A Mexican restaurant, he decided.
Introducing Rincon Mexicano
Patel hired a cook who has worked for him in the past and moved forward with plans for a Mexican restaurant that he named Rincon Mexicano. “Rincon” means “corner” in Spanish – fitting, since the restaurant is at the corner of Newberry Ave. and East John Street.
The restaurant will be open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily beginning May 28 and will offer dine-in and take-out.
“We might even have delivery. We want to be flexible enough to get our food out any way we can,” Duke Patel said.
The restaurant will have about 30 tables, accommodating about 100 customers at a time. That number does not include the coffee shop sitting area.
Duke Patel planned separate grand opening events because he felt it would be too much to have them on the same day.
He acknowledges prepping the building took longer than he had planned.
“We have it in a place where it will go for many more decades, it is in good shape now.”
He does not have specific plans for the second and third floor of the building, but said he is hoping to secure grant funding to convert those floors into apartments, which could provide housing for people working at the hospital.
