It’s been two months since the grand opening of Twin Pikes Roastery in High Ridge, and co-owner Matt Macheca is already envisioning something bigger and better.
The drive-thru shop, 2528 Gravois Road, offers coffee-based drinks, like lattes, cappuccinos and frappuccinos, plus energy drinks and teas. The company, based in Louisiana, Mo., opened its High Ridge location in May.
“We’ve gotten good support from the community so far,” Macheca said. “People look at this as a treat. Sometimes you’ve got a car full of people and they all want different things. We also see some of the same faces every day.”
In addition to the drive-thru window already in place, Macheca plans to create an outdoor seating area on one side of the shop this fall, complete with a window for customers to order from.
Macheca met his Twin Pikes Roastery business partner, Ryan Cornell, through Catholic church events. Also, both men have children around the same age and attended some of the same events with them.
Twin Pikes Roastery began when Cornell started a small-batch micro-roastery in 2015. Macheca joined Cornell about six years ago when the business partners started selling their coffee at the Lake St. Louis Farmers Market.
“We started selling our nitro cold brew out there, and that really took off,” Macheca said.
By infusing cold brewed coffee with nitrogen gas, the nitro cold brew coffee develops a smooth, creamy texture, according to Homegrounds, an online barista community.
After drumming up business at the market, the business partners opened a storefront in Louisiana, Mo., in March 2022. The cafe has a roasting room in the back and seating for customers in the front.
Cornell runs the Louisiana location, and Macheca wanted to operate a location closer to his hometown of High Ridge, leading to the idea for a drive-thru coffee shop, Macheca said.
He said people like the drive-thru window because it makes it easier to stop by on their way to work or before heading home.
While Macheca is not a self-proclaimed coffee fanatic, he wants the shop to be a small-town success story.
“It wasn’t because I have some major passion for coffee,” he said. “But I built this place. I scraped the floors, redid the ceiling and painted the walls. I rehabbed this place for five months.”
“Once you’re open, though, you just want it to be as good as it can be. You want the customers to be happy.”
His daughter, Isabelle Macheca, 22, manages the coffee shop.
She said the job has forced her to become a morning person.
“There are long hours some days, but I enjoy it so much,” she said. “I love working with my dad and working in customer service, being able to recognize people who come in all the time.”
Isabelle has invented many of the drinks at Twin Pikes Roastery, and the Lotus Energy drinks are some of her most Instagrammable concoctions, she said.
Lotus Energy is a naturally caffeinated drink, without all the chemicals that can be associated with commercial energy drinks, Macheca said.
The deep purple Royal Flush drink and the vibrant pink Peach Passion are just as tasty as they are photo-worthy, she said.
Macheca said the shop can add more sweetness or more carbonated water to the drink based on what a customer wants.
“We have it set up where the Lotus syrup and carbonated water mix together when we’re putting it into the cup,” she said. “I’ve always seen people use the hand pumps (for the syrup) and then put the carbonated water in the cup.”
The shop offers a customer loyalty program.
Nathan Wilkerson, a 17-year-old student at Northwest High School, started working at the coffee shop as a barista when it opened in May.
“It’s a lot of fun making drinks because each drink is different,” he said. “Even if people order the same thing, there are always little differences. I’m a coffee nerd, so perfecting the espresso shots here has been a lot of fun.”
Wilkerson said Twin Pikes roasts its coffee beans in small batches, creating tasty coffee drinks.
“We roast them fresh, which is something that you don’t see a lot of big corporations do,” Wilkerson said. “Starbucks, they’ll roast their beans in such large quantities that in order to get them to be properly roasted, they over-roast them. That’s why it tastes a little burnt.”
For those who like to brew their coffee at home, Twin Pikes Roastery sells whole beans or ground coffee blends both on its website and at its High Ridge location.
Matt Macheca calls the company’s Cafe St. Louis Blend, one of the company’s best sellers, a “flavorful medium roast.”
Macheca said exciting new products are brewing at the shop, including smoothie bowls and a variety of pumpkin spice drinks, which will be available in the fall.
Twin Pikes Roastery is open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
