By Ben Olivo | @rbolivo | Heron editor
In about two months, CommonWealth Coffeehouse & Bakery is set to open its fifth location in the former Rosella Coffee & Wine Bar space at 203 E. Jones Ave. near Broadway. The local company is also planning new locations in Stone Oak and at Port San Antonio.
Expect coffee to be front and center at its new East Jones location, along with lunch and dinner options, pastries and bread, and beer and wine.
“In that location itself, there’s a big push in new residents in the area,” said Marcel Arana, CommonWealth co-owner and operations manager. “At the same time, you have professional businesses around. We want to do a mix of the two. You’d be able to go in there and decompress like you’re able to do at our Alamo Heights store. But at the same time be able to create room to have meetings.”
Arana said he hopes to begin renovations to the space last occupied by Rosella in the next two weeks. The renovation itself is expected to take up to two months, he said.
“The biggest challenge on this one … Rosella was such a staple at this location, obviously you want to create a new atmosphere, a new ambiance,” Arana said. “The location is so pretty in itself already, it’s about going in and giving it a new feel, a touch of what CommonWealth has to offer.”
The lease at East Jones was signed about a month and a half ago, Arana said, but he’s been busy with renovations at the Hemisfair (re-opened about a week ago) and Weston Centre (due to open in about a week) locations.
“First and foremost, we are a coffeeshop,” he said. “That’s what we want to continue being.”
In addition, CommonWealth is opening a shop in Stone Oak at 20079 Stone Oak Parkway later this year after the East Jones location is up and running, and at Port San Antonio late-this year or early next year, Arana said,
He said to expect the West Jones location to open at 7 a.m. through 8 or 9 p.m. weekdays, and to open at 8 a.m. through 11 p.m. or midnight on the weekends.
They’re working on a tapas menu for the evenings, which was something they experimented with at the Weston Centre location.
The local coffeeshop chain also has a location at 224 W. Evergreen St. near San Antonio College, which serves as its commissary, and the original location at 118 Davis Court.
Before the pandemic, CommonWealth had nine locations, but five of those eventually closed—three hospital locations, one at Concord Plaza, and another at the Burns building downtown.
Heron Editor Ben Olivo has been writing about downtown San Antonio since 2008, first for mySA.com, then for the San Antonio Express-News. He co-founded the Heron in 2018, and can be reached at 210-421-3932 | ben@saheron.com | @rbolivo on Twitter
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