1122 Coffee Co.: a WNBA guard and her sister open a living room coffee shop in downtown Concord

This one is from Concord, a few miles up I-85 in Cabarrus County, and it is worth the drive. A WNBA guard and her sister have opened a coffee shop in downtown Concord named after the house they grew up in, and Axios Charlotte visited last week to report that https://queencitymagazine.com/directory/1122-coffee-co/ is open at 25 Barbrick Avenue SW, Suite 103.

The owners are Karlee McBride-Webber and Kayla McBride. Kayla plays for the Minnesota Lynx. Karlee runs the shop day to day while her sister is in season. The name, 1122, is the street number of their childhood home in Erie, Pennsylvania.

How a basketball family ends up in coffee

The story Karlee told Axios is a simple one. Growing up in a basketball household meant a lot of travel, and the sisters made a habit of finding the local coffee shop in every town instead of a chain. Enough years of that turned into wanting a place of their own. Karlee put it this way to Axios: “bringing our living room to the neighborhood.”

That shows in the room. The shop is 643 square feet and seats about 17 people, according to Axios, with a couch and lounge chairs up front and a few tables set up for anyone working on a laptop. It is small on purpose. This is not a place built for a line out the door, it is built for people who want to sit for a while.

What they are pouring

The coffee is roasted locally, the syrups are made in house and the shop leans on North Carolina ingredients where it can, per Axios. The signature drinks:

• The 1122 Latte, blueberry and vanilla.
• A matcha topped with blueberry cold foam.
• A brown sugar honey latte, sweetened with exactly what it says.

Standard espresso drinks, cappuccinos and lattes round out the board. Food comes mostly from Ladolka Deluxe Bakery in Mooresville, so expect pastries, cinnamon rolls and savory croissants like ham and cheese or spinach, with the selection changing day to day. Once the Lynx season wraps, Kayla plans to add a signature cookie of her own. Karlee told Axios her sister is a very good baker.

The opening, and the hours

The grand opening was Saturday, Sept. 5, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with a DJ, according to the Downtown Concord event listing. Explore Cabarrus, the county’s tourism office, promoted it as well.

Hours are the one place sources disagree. When Axios first previewed the shop in August, the plan was Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. In the Sept. 11 follow up after the opening, Axios reports the shop is closed Tuesdays: open Monday and Wednesday through Saturday 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. We are going with the newer report, since it came after the doors opened. The shop does not appear to have a website yet, only an Instagram account, so call ahead or check there before making the drive on a Tuesday.

Where it sits in downtown Concord

Barbrick Avenue is a short block off Union Street, the main drag of downtown Concord, which has quietly become one of the better small downtowns in the region over the last several years. There is already a well loved coffee and wine spot a few blocks away, so 1122 is not the only option, but a shop this size with this menu is a different thing than a big room with a bar. If you are in Concord for a Cabarrus Arena event or a day of walking Union Street, this is the sit down coffee.

For Charlotte readers, it is roughly half an hour from Uptown up I-85 without traffic. Our read: the WNBA angle will bring the first wave of customers, and the drinks will decide whether they come back. Based on what Axios described, the menu can carry it.

Why a Concord story is here

Queen City Magazine covers Charlotte and Mecklenburg County first, and we widen to the surrounding counties when something is worth the drive. Concord qualifies more often than it used to. Axios keeps a running guide to a day in Concord with more than twenty places to eat, drink and see, and downtown has added enough restaurants, bars and shops over the last few years that a Saturday there now feels like a plan rather than a detour on the way to the speedway.

A coffee shop is a small business by any measure. What makes this one a story is the combination: a professional athlete putting her name and money into a 643 square foot storefront in a town of about 100,000, on a side street, with a menu built around local roasters and a bakery from the next town over. That is the kind of opening that tells you something about where a downtown is headed. Erie’s loss is Concord’s gain.

One thing we did not find is a phone number. Axios did not print one, the downtown and county event listings did not include one, and there is no website to pull it from. If you have it, let us know and we will add it to the listing. Until then, the shop’s Instagram is the best way to check for a closure or a schedule change.

In the directory

1122 Coffee Co. is verified open and now has a listing in our directory under https://queencitymagazine.com/directory/1122-coffee-co/, filed under Concord. It is one of a growing number of Cabarrus County listings we carry, and we will keep adding downtown Concord as it fills in.

The address again: 25 Barbrick Avenue SW, Suite 103, Concord, NC 28025.

Know about a new business opening in Charlotte or the surrounding towns? Send us a tip and we will check it out.