Caffeine with a side of cozy conversation at Angelo’s, a new South End coffee shop

If you walk into Angelo Gray’s coffee shop and order a plain latte, he’ll raise an eyebrow at you and ask, “Are you sure?”

On the wall above him, the menu offers an array of playful options, from the self-explanatory “Banana Latte” to the intriguing “DIRT!!!”

Six months ago, the 24-year-old, lifelong city resident opened the little coffee bar bearing his name. It’s tucked in the entryway of a house adjoining the south end swimming pool where his family runs Swim NH. With just enough room for a drink counter, prep area, fridge and one table, it’s not hard to see how the city’s newest coffee shop was once used as a mud room.

Gray prefers it small. He makes a point of chatting up every customer at Angelo’s Coffee Shop and gets time to be playful with the mixological concoctions on his menu.

“I talk to every single person that comes in,” he said. “We have regulars that come in, and we make things off the menu all the time.”

Swim NH provides a built-in clientele for Angelo’s: parents sitting cross-legged in the humid, chlorinated air are happy to have something to sip while their kids flutter through their lessons. Older swimmers coming to and from practice like to grab something, too. Gray’s hours align with those of the pool.

He hopes, however, to draw in regulars from across the South End and beyond.

“There’s no coffee shops on this side of town except for Dunkin donuts,” Gray said.

While Concord has no shortage of places to grab a cuppa – all of which, he is a fan – each has its own feel and signature. What his shop offers, Gray said, is an “intimate” coffee-buying experience and good conversation. Both are perhaps unavoidable in the little cafe.

Gray has dabbled in coffee-related entrepreneurial pursuits since he was a teen.

His father, Kevin, began buying his own beans and roasting them at home on the stove when Gray was 12. A few years later, Gray learned the process for himself. He roasts the beans he serves daily.

Gray combined his inherited love of craft coffee with an entrepreneurial bent from the jump. As a student at Concord High, he started bagging and selling cascara tea – made from the spent fruit that bears coffee beans – then started roasting and selling his own super-small-batch coffee.

In the years since, his travels inspired the idea behind Angelo’s. During a roadtrip along the East Coast he found himself stopping at, and studying, as many coffee shops as possible. On a trek through Central America, he visited coffee farmers.

The earliest days of Angelo’s cafe were a small cart outside the pool, where his main offerings included cocoa and lemonade. Its popularity was proof of concept: he deeply enjoyed a face-to-face business and the swim school provided a strong enough base of support to think bigger.

Gray’s family had cleaned and fixed up the house on Hall Street as part of the pool project. He designed and built the little cafe on the ground floor. These days, lifeguard certifications happen in the basement, coffee roasting happens upstairs. He hopes to spiff up the front porch so that a few tables and chairs could fit and provide covered outdoor seating.

In the meantime, he’s enjoying how his shop is adding to the pool’s community feel and Hall Street’s emerging neighborhood vibes. Ceramic mugs for sale on a wall shelf were handmade by other swim instructors. Kids duck in after lessons, begging mom or dad for a donut from the case. His dad will stop in and order a cappuccino.

“It’s like a big family,” he said. “Then people off the street come in and they get to feel that.”

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