Get ready to be blown away by the most delicious coffee you have ever had – and to step into one of the coolest coffee shops you’ve ever seen!
Bentonville
Bentonville, Arkansas. While it may be home to Sam Walt– there’s a lot more going on there these days in the smaller city than there use to be. The up and coming Bentonville is now the leading bicycle capital of the world – making the culture slightly more free spirited than the founder of Wal-Mart’s days. My take away of the town, was that this is what Portland, Oregon would look like if it were a small, southern town.
With a lot of beanie cap wearing folks, and environmentally conscious as they are – Bentonville is a lot more progressive than one might think.
Enter Onyx. This coffee shop, that is actually referred to as a coffee lab, is ideal for those millennial laptop users who want to get away from spending their dollars at the Starbuck’s type chains, and reinvest it in a local venue. And the perfect place for that is Onyx.
With a multitude of coffee options, a vast array of breakfast items and some of the friendliest staff you’ll meet in all of Bentonville, Onyx is truly where it’s at.
I had the opportunity to spend a morning here, and was truly blown away by the quality of the coffee (not to mention to the food and merchandise), the staff, and the overall vibe of the place in general.
The Background & Their Locations
Owners Jon and Andrea started Onyx back in 2012. Having worked in the coffee industry for years, they had a vision for becoming the best coffee roasters in the world. As far as I’m concerned, that dream was definitely realized! Though one of their original shops in Springdale has since been bought by a different coffee company, Onyx remains a true leader in the world of tasty coffee. Today, they have a total of 4 locations: Fayetteville, Arkansas (their other original shop), downtown Bentonville, Arkansas, downtown Rogers, Arkansas, and inside The Momentary Art Museum, which is also located in Bentonville.
According to the owners,
“We are from Arkansas. So our roots are here. There was never really a consideration about this being the right place to start a coffee company. Our area is really ripe companies just starting, the cost of doing business and living is relatively low, and there’s a lot of older, larger established commerce in the area as well so it makes for a good spot for people that are super excited about great coffee. We were inspired by other roasteries and cafes around the country that were producing really great roasted coffee and beverages, and we really just started to dream about what that could look like in their own community. We basically knew nothing about coffee, but as we started to learn about sourcing and roasting, it became clear and exciting that the industry was so large and that we could learn about it indefinitely.”
What’s So Special?
Jon and Andrea tell me,
“We all work really hard on our team to make every single coffee excellent. We have a pretty rigorous process of sourcing and selecting coffees. As a standard we won’t purchase anything that we score under an 86. This sort of benchmark has been amazing for us and really pushes us to search for amazing coffees. We also quality control every single batch of coffee, every day. We evaluate our roast profile data, moisture content, and then cupping evaluation and if coffees for some reason fall outside of our standard we don’t sell them. We have long wanted to cultivate trust with our customers, that every coffee is great every time. This only happens with a team that’s talented and committed to coffee at the highest level. They are superstars and are really contributing in a huge way both at Onyx and in coffee as a whole.
Our commitment to sourcing, roasting, and serving the best coffee in the world is what sets Onyx apart! Visiting any of our locations in Arkansas, you can taste and enjoy some really great single origin coffees or discover some really creative seasonal drinks.” And I second all of that.
My Experience
So let’s get right into it. Why did I fall in love with Onyx and have decided to petition them into becoming a nationwide chain? Because it’s literally the best coffee I’ve ever had in my life, and the creations I tried while I were there were so inventive, flavorful and mouthwatering, I wish I were drinking one of their coffee concoctions right now.
Let’s start with the best drink by far and away that I had at any place I drank coffee during my 3 week cross-country trip. Their seasonal drink called The Winter Fomo. I specifically went home with a bag of their Monarch coffee, just so that I could replicate the drink at a later time. I haven’t had the opportunity to try it out yet, but rest assured when I have the time, I will be making this. The drink consists of white chocolate, espresso, winter mint, heavy cream, coconut and torched rosemary. You would not necessarily think that all of these ingredients would harmonize as well as they do – but oh my goodness, do they ever.
But perhaps this isn’t your cup of…coffee. Maybe Southern Weather Blend might be more your jam, which according to the owners, is their most popular roast. While their most popular drink in general is the Onyx Delight Latte, made with Monarch espresso (because it’s the best!), milk, honey, vanilla and cinnamon.
And while their most popular food items are considered to be any of their croissants (butter, chocolate and almond) they were out when I was visiting, so I had my own favorites. Definitely don’t skip their avocado toast. You certainly don’t want to miss out on their sundried tomato quiche, but the most delicious thing you will have there, at least from what I tasted was a cross between the breakfast sandwich and their Goat Cheese Fig and Honey Turnover. Now, before I tried this I was skeptical as it sounded a little exotic, but oh my goodness it so works. The flavors were amazing and it was so well executed.
The Space, Expansion & Why It’s Great
We need to take a moment and appreciate the absolute wonderous design of whomever put the place together. The ceilings are more than incredible, and the interior designer did a fantastic job of making it feel halfway European/halfway ultra Pacific Northwest American. Ordering a shot of espresso at the bar and throwing it back made me reminiscent of my days in Italy and doing the same thing there. While the seatless benches in the center of the coffee lab, make it efficient for those who are needing a place to set their grub, but not necessarily gifted with a lot of time. The calm and relaxing environment offers comfy leather couches, desks with working space for those who need to work on their computers, and some very green plants above head which give it all the more of an earthy, open-seating feel to it. The lighting is outstanding and getting to watch the baristas makes the coffee in front of you makes you feel like you’re more at a bar rather than a coffee shop. Which is probably why they call it a lab.
“Green buying is probably our biggest focus at Onyx. Our quality standard is that we only purchase coffees that score at 86 and above. That is the floor of where our purchasing starts. We are really in search of the most beautiful coffees we can find, and we also tend to have a certain flavor profile that we look for- clean and sweet. We do also purchase and sell high end rare variety coffees that encompass the highest end of coffees that are available world wide. We source those through bidding in auctions but also by actively pursuing relationships with producers that are cultivating their coffees in this way.
We call our coffees ‘relationship coffees’, which means we have visited the farm, contracted the coffee with the producer, and paid them directly for the coffees. 75% of the green that we purchase fall into this category. Many of these are now long standing partners of ours. We pay for green on a cash basis, meaning that we don’t ever finance green coffee. For us, we want the money going straight into a producer’s pocket. We publish all of our trade data in real time on our website, so you can see exactly what we paid and who we paid it to for any coffee offering that we have. This is done to promote the exchange of information between producers, buyers, and roasters alike. We are committed to raising the standards of specialty coffee as much as we are able.”
When asked if they plan to expand nationwide, I’m told,
“We are hoping to do another cafe in Northwest Arkansas. We love this community and we also love building shops. Currently we have no plans to extend our retail footprint outside of Arkansas. We roast coffee for many other independent cafes all around the US and the world, so you can find Onyx coffee in just about every state!”
And finally, they add that,
“We love food and beverage so our new restaurant, Well Met! is a foray into that. It’s a neighborhood restaurant that serves really beautiful plates featuring fresh, local ingredients, and fun, playful flavors and colors. We are hoping to grow our food program at Onyx as a whole. We also are really into the natural wine movement, and Well Met has a bottle shop featuring only natural wines. We have a wine club, wine tastings, and we also make cocktails too. We do have some RTD and coffee concentrate products in the works as well so watch out for those! You can find Well Met in Johnson, Arkansas (which is between Bentonville and Fayetteville).”
In conclusion, my time at Onyx was fantastic, and I wouldn’t just recommend the lab but the coffee as a whole. I have now become their number one fan, and plan to drink as much for their coffee in my lifetime as possible.
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