Grounded Coffee Shop: The Meeting Place

Haven’t seen your friend or neighbor in a while? You might run into them at Grounded Coffee Shop. This Earth Day will mark the third anniversary of the cozy hangout in The Shops at Telegraph, which is owned and operated by married pastry chefs Candy and Wilfrid Briffa.

“We kind of both have our own things that we do,” said Candy Briffa, a redhead with an easy smile. “I pretty much run the front end and I make the decisions regarding the front end, and he’s pretty much the kitchen. So we have a balance.”

Judging by the lines late into the morning, and the clusters of relaxed customers scattered throughout the shop, the balance works. Parents with young children, people enjoying a quick meal or coffee while concentrating on a laptop, and small group meetings all appear to be at home.

“I love the fact that this has become like a community hub for a lot of people,” Briffa said. “It’s really cool to see everybody coming here, and this is like their meeting place.”

Candy and Wilfrid met at the historic Willard Hotel near the White House. He was there for two months from his native France. She spent eight years there, but they’ve both spent years working for restaurants and hotels.

They’d also dabbled in entrepreneurial pursuits and knew they wanted to run their own business, so opening Grounded gave them an opportunity to bring everything together – from the food to the flooring.

“I had a vision to create the space and make it warm and inviting,” said Briffa, who designed the former office space and chose the vibrant colors. “Wil laid the floor himself. He made all the cabinets…. We put the [orange back] wall right there to kind of separate our office from the front. He made all those bricks one by one.”

“As far as pastry goes he has his French influence and I have the American influence, like the cupcakes. He does his traditional éclairs, the fruit tarts, the pear tarts, that’s all traditional French stuff,” Briffa said with a smile. They also combine efforts. “The croissants, the quiche. He’ll make the crust and I’ll make the filling.”

Briffa said they’d love to do more community-oriented events like and Happy Hours, but her biggest dream is to expand the kitchen.

“Making the kitchen bigger we could do more catering, we could do more cakes, do more creative things that we want to do,” she said. “I used to do all the wedding cakes at the Willard, and that to me is fun. I enjoy doing that because you get to be creative, it’s more artistic. It just is a different level of what we do now.”

She and Wilfrid are also parents. Their 11-year old son is often in the shop. “He wants to have his own business someday,” Briffa said. “I’m not sure if it’ll be this type of business, but he’s quite an entrepreneur.”

If he creates anything that brings people together the way his parents’ place does, he’ll be just fine.