For 18 years, Cup to Cup Coffee owner James Spano has been roasting coffee beans on Wilmington Island.

Not serving them by the cup. Not with a small counter and a menu and someone walking in off Johnny Mercer Boulevard looking for a little afternoon lift. Roasting. Supplying. Building the kind of quiet, steady coffee operation that plenty of people around Savannah know well, even if they don’t know the whole story.

Now, finally, Cup to Cup has opened a small retail coffee space right next door to where it all began.

And small is definitely part of the story here. The new shop is roughly 350 square feet, so no one is pretending this is some grand production. There are not a lot of bells and whistles. Just coffee, frozen drinks, a few seats, and the smell of beans being roasted a few steps away.

“For 18 years, people have been asking me to brew them a cup of coffee,” Spano told me.

Now he can.

Cup to Cup already has a retail shop downtown Savannah, but this one feels different. This one is attached to the roots of the business. The roasting operation is still right there, doing what it has done for nearly two decades. The difference now is that customers can walk in, order a cup, and enjoy it just a few steps from where the beans are handled.

That is a pretty good little full-circle moment.

As for what to order, I tried their frozen “Banoffee,” which is their name for a frozen banana mocha. I am not usually looking for banana in my coffee, but this one worked. Cold, rich, a little playful, and absolutely worth a return visit.

It is not a big space. It does not need to be.

For Cup to Cup, this little shop on Wilmington Island is 18 years in the making. Stop by and see them on your way to the office. The doors swing open every morning at 7:00am. You can find it along the right side of the building where FIT Gym is at Johnny Mercer across the parking lot from CVS. (The islanders know).

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