JACKSONVILLE, Fla — The screech of peacocks amid the aroma of roasting coffee beans signal Screaming Peacock Coffee is open for business inside a renovated barn-like building in uptown St. Augustine.
Screaming Peacock Coffee, a small-batch, specialty roastery of artisan coffees, is a new venture from Craig and Stacey Goldberg, owners of the popular Urban Grind Coffee Co. in downtown Jacksonville.
"Our coffees don’t blend in — they scream out!" proclaims the company's motto of its coffee beans that are hand-roasted to order and delivered daily to ensure consistency and freshness.
Located at 5 Sebastian Ave., the recently opened roastery's name and fanciful logo pay homage to its proximity within "screaming distance" of the Fountain of Youth peacocks.
" …We could hear the crazy 'screaming' party of peacocks, hence the name," the Goldbergs said.
The couple offers their artisan coffees to wholesale customers, who can schedule tastings, known as cupping sessions, to find the right brew for their businesses. For others wanting to try Screaming Peacock's coffees, 12-ounce bags are available for purchase through the roastery's website.
Those coffees include "Eyes Wide Open," an espresso blend; "House Party," a house blend; "Midnight Mayhem," a single-origin coffee; an "Almond Biscotti" flavor; and "Charade," a decaf, the Screaming Peacock website shows.
For the Goldbergs, taste is everything. Getting the flavor right is a process that can't be rushed, they said.
"We have spent a significant amount of time researching and perfecting our roast profiles, including blends and single origin coffees," they said. "We are truly a small-batch roaster, so there is a tremendous amount of attention to detail with each and every roast."
The Goldbergs launched their joint coffee careers in 2010 when they opened a single coffee kiosk in the Bank of America Tower in downtown Jacksonville.
Five years later, they opened Urban Grind Coffee Co., a high-volume retail storefront coffeehouse at 45 W. Bay St., across North Laura Street from their original coffee kiosk.
Having their own coffee roastery, they said, was a natural progression after being on the retail side of the business for a decade.
"It was important to us to learn and understand what our customers were looking for before opening our own coffee roastery," they said.
Screaming Peacock plans to rotate other single-origin roasts depending on the harvest and time of year, allowing them to offer seasonal variations while continuing to offer a variety of other coffees from around the world, they said.
The Goldbergs' search for a commercial space to locate the roastery led them back to St. Augustine, where they met, fell in love and graduated from Flagler College.
It was easy to find typically nondescript warehouses, they said but none met their criteria including character as unique as the coffee they'd be roasting.
Then, traveling down a hidden side street, they found a barn-like building with the charm, square footage and zoning flexibility meeting their current and future needs.
"We were hooked …" Stacey Goldberg said about the building.
