Caffé Lucé Coffee Roasting Co. is moving downtown.
The longtime Tucson coffee purveyor is slipping into the East Congress Street space that has been home for five years to Sparkroot Coffee Bar + Fare.
After several months of discussions, Caffé Lucé owner Michael Foster and Sparkroot owner Ari Shapiro are expected to finalize the sale next week. Foster said he will take over the shop on Jan. 1.
“It’s not going to change a great deal,” he said of the transition. “I think what Ari did was great in a great location.”
But Foster will make one change off the bat: He will replace the Ritual Coffee Roasters brew served at Sparkroot with his Caffé Lucé roast, which is served at his two other locations: in Main Gate Square at 943 E. University Blvd. and at 4205 N. Campbell Ave.
Foster said he also plans to streamline the menu and offer more high-end bakery items to recast the business as more of a coffee shop than a restaurant. But those plans will be phased in over time.
The shop will continue with the name Sparkroot until summertime, when Foster said he will change the name to Caffé Lucé.
“I think it will be a good fit all around. There’s a lot of competition around there (for restaurants), but they have really had no good options for quick coffee,” he said.
The sale frees up Shapiro to focus on his pizzeria Falora and cocktail lounge Side Car, both located doors down from one another in Broadway Village.
“I’ve done a lot of small concepts since I’ve been here, but I think it’s just a matter of after 15 years finding my focus,” said Shapiro, who also founded the popular Tucson smoothie shop Xoom Juice, which he sold late last year. “My focus is Falora. I’m at the oven nightly and with my strong attention on it, it’s getting better and better.”
Shapiro opened the Neopolitan pizzeria in early 2013 at 3000 E. Broadway.
He said the move away from Sparkroot also allows him to focus on his wife Kerry Lane’s restaurant concept Beaut Burger. He said she plans to open the restaurant west of downtown next fall.
Shapiro wouldn’t comment on Lane’s plans beyond describing it as a burger joint with a “pretty sizable twist.”
Shapiro said his 10 Sparkroot employees will continue working at the shop after Foster takes over.
Foster said the move downtown “kind of feels like a completion of what I am trying to do with Caffé Lucé in Tucson.”
“It feels like the right move to tie it altogether,” he said.
