Customers work on their laptops at Camp House Espresso in Chattanooga. More professionals are forgoing offices to work from coffee shops.The Camp House is brewing something new.
Late this year, the coffee shop will roll up its urban-funk decor in Chattanooga’s Southside and head downtown to storefronts under the Volunteer Building’s garage.
Camp House has a five-year lease with Corker Properties X for its new space along M.L. King Boulevard. The coffee shop — which doubles as meeting hall, wedding venue, lunch spot and concert venue — has known for a year it needs to relocate and started mulling the downtown option early this year, said its director, Matt Busby. Camp House’s lease ends on Dec. 1.
The coffee shop isn’t moving for lack of love over the airy Williams Street space it’s been in since 2010, Busby said. Instead, the building’s landlord, sculptor Cessna Decosimo, wants to turn the coffee shop into a studio, Busby said. Decosimo couldn’t be reached for comment.
The new 9,000-square-foot Volunteer space can hold about 500 people, compared with 150 at the current William Street site. The extra room means a bigger coffee bar and kitchen, with food served into the evening. Camp House plans to offer wine and have beer on tap. It also wants to build a patio where a driveway now connects M.L. King Boulevard to the parking deck.