Ace Eat Serve Joins Coffeeshop-Inside-a-Bar-Trend

Ping-pong hall and pan-Asian eatery Ace Eat Serve, an Uptown staple for thirteen years, recently expanded — but not with a new space. Instead, it's expanded its hours and offerings with Ace Coffee Bar. Joining the recent trend of coffeeshops opening inside bars and breweries, Ace Coffee Bar is using the Ace space when it would otherwise be closed.

"We've never really opened up during normal lunch hours," says executive pastry chef Michael Kurowski. "We tried it once and it wasn’t what we were expecting for lunch service, it just wasn't a good fit."

A coffee program has been in the works for a couple years, however, and finally came to fruition last month.
The vision was simple: a co-working space where you can also enjoy some really good coffee (or beer or wine, if you so choose). They partnered with Huckleberry to add an espresso machine and coffee to the menu. And, keeping in theme with the restaurant, many of the drinks are Asian-inspired, like the miso kame mocha, black sesame matcha latte, banana milk latte and thai iced tea.

Kurowski developed a pastry menu for the morning, simplified from the dinner service. Classic options like bear claws and rotating flavors of muffins, quick breads plus savory options like ham and cheese croissant and something Kurowski created for the occasion— a smash-ant (pronounced smash-aunt, like croissant), i.e. a smashed croissant that's been baked between two sheet pans, which doesn't allow the dough to rise. The result is a crispy pastry "It's similar to an elephant ear— it's crispy, flaky and crunchy," explains Kurowski "And it's much less messy to eat."
Although the restaurant doesn't open until 4 p.m. on weekdays, coffee drinkers visiting Ace can indulge in a special pastry or a burrito by neighboring sister-eatery Steuben's.

"The main purpose behind this was, we have the space we’re not utilizing it during the day, so what investment can we make to make this open more?" recalls Kurowski. "We already had a large bar to begin with," he adds, so there was plenty of room to install an espresso machine and a pastry case. And the restaurant itself has lots of room, allowing work-from-homers to sprawl out in the main dining area, the bar, the patio, the Lucky Cat lounge and the ping-pong room. Plus, they welcome large groups with reservations and can accommodate with meeting set-up and catering.

Breweries like Novel Strand and Second Dawn have also recently added coffee programs to their spaces. Slackline, the concept inside of Jagged Mountain, temporarily closed when ownership of the brewery changed hands.

Ace Coffee Bar at 501 East 17th Avenue is open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and weekends from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Weekend hours overlap with brunch at the restaurant; learn more at aceeatserve.com.