News

Hobb's to bring local foods to menu

In print | August 27, 2009

“Buy fresh, buy local” is the motto behind Hobb’s Coffee, the new coffee and light food shop opening in late September on Park Avenue in the borough. Hobb’s will offer coffee, sandwiches, salads, soups, breakfast foods and pastries, among other food items.

The shop is focused on creating an atmosphere where people feel like they can sit down and relax for an hour without feeling pushed out.

Part-owner Steve Iannicarri, along with his other two business partners, felt that Swarthmore really clicked for them.“[Swarthmore] seems like the prime place for this,” Iannicarri said. Part-owner and senior manager Jason Hamill is also excited to open the shop in Swarthmore. He has been pleased with how welcoming and friendly the borough has been to them.

“We just want to have a steady stream of Swarthmore people in there,” Hamill said. “We’re trying to have everybody in the town satisfied. We’ll be accepting tons of feedback.”

According to Hamill, all food in the restaurant will be organic and local. They will also offer several vegetarian and vegan options with the help of vegetarian head cook and part-owner Bill Randall.

Although he is a vegetarian, he is willing to serve meat as long as it is free-range organic. “That’s the only way my soul will allow me to go through with [putting meat on the menu],” Randall said. Randall and his partners have worked to keep things close to home and will focus on seasonal recipes that aim to capture each part of the year.

“We go out of our way, based on countless attempts at recipes, to pick the most fresh, local ingredients we can find,” Randall said."

A $7 local cheese plate will be the most expensive item on the menu, with most sandwiches, like the vegetarian BLT, falling around $5.

But the main focus of the shop is coffee and the coffee shop atmosphere. After six months of searching, they finally settled on a coffee roaster of choice last month.

To give a college and community feel, the shop will have a free computer available for people to play whatever music they want.

Opening the shop has been difficult at times for the trio. Hamill is 22-years-old, Randall is 21 and Iannicarri is 20, making them young in the field of entrepreneurs.

“We’re college-aged kids just doing something different,” Hamill said. “It’s been an uphill battle to be taken seriously in a lot of fields.”

But the shop will open next month, and according to Hamill, so far, other local business owners have been more than willing to give them advice.