Since its opening in 1921, the covered shopping district Nickels Arcade has been a hub for University of Michigan students and the larger Ann Arbor community alike. The Michigan Daily Business beat interviewed some of these businesses to highlight the current state of the Arcade. Read the other stories here.
The instant you step through the doors of Comet Coffee, the aroma of espresso and the clink of porcelain mugs flood your senses. On a sunny day, the small store is packed with people sipping coffee, eating pastries and conversing with friends at tables indoors as well in the corridor of Nickels Arcade.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Comet Coffee owner Jim Saborio said he opened this coffeehouse in 2009. As someone who grew up in Ann Arbor, Saborio said the Arcade has always meant something special to him. Comet Coffee entered Nickels Arcade after a different location fell through and Saborio heard of the vacancy there, and it has remained in the Arcade ever since.
“It’s been a really great location because I feel like we’re surrounded by a bunch of like-minded businesses,” Saborio said. “It’s a great place to be someplace where the town meets the campus.”
Saborio began working as a barista in 1992 when he was a teenager. He said he knew he wanted to one day open his own coffee shop by the time he was 19.
“I worked at a really small coffee shop that is now closed, that was in Saline, Michigan called The Drowsy Parrot,” Saborio said. “The downtown of a lot of towns in the area had largely been shuttered, and people were looking for a sense of community and wanted their downtowns back and The Drowsy Parrot was very much that to Saline … That was a very formative place for me.”
As an Ann Arbor native and former barista, Saborio said he was able to connect those two aspects of his life with the establishment of Comet Coffee.
“Coffee has always been an important thing to me, and downtown Ann Arbor has been really special to me since I was a teenager,” Saborio said. “(So) I really wanted to kind of tell my story in coffee and share that experience with people.”
According to Saborio, the name of Comet Coffee is a reference to Halley’s Comet.
“The guy who first taught me how to make a cappuccino, his name was Halley,” Saborio said. “It’s kind of a shout out to him.”
Saborio said the name also represents the type of place he wants Comet Coffee to be.
“The comet is also a reference to … a coffee shop (being) a place that is still, but people come and go,” Saborio said. “They shoot out far, they do a sabbatical somewhere, they go off to study somewhere, but they come back. I always imagined that it’s kind of like a comet, that I wanted this place to be that same way.”
Certain tables in Comet Coffee are marked as laptop- and tablet-free to encourage conversation between customers. Saborio said he was inspired to do this after an experience at a coffee shop where he felt awkward speaking aloud due to the silence of people working on their computers.
“I remember whispering to my wife because it felt awkward to talk in that space,” Saborio said. “I wanted Comet to be a place where people met and people had conversations. There are so many coffee shops in town that do so many different things in different ways, but I wanted us to be a meeting place and a place for conversation. It seems to be working — I see people on either side of me having conversations, and that’s pretty meaningful.”
Comet Coffee also offers reusable porcelain cups for drinks in addition to to-go cups. Certain drinks, such as espressos, macchiatos and drinking chocolate are only offered in porcelain cups. Saborio said despite this being a less common practice, he feels it adds to the sensory experience of drinking coffee.
“Part of it is for environmental reasons, where we prefer people to drink those smaller drinks on the spot, and you can reuse the cup,” Saborio said. “Another (reason) is there’s a real tactile warmth to ceramic. It’s very humanizing, and I love that. If you can come in and down a shot of espresso in a real ceramic cup with a little glass of sparkling water on the side, it’s really good for your soul.”
According to Saborio, the baristas at Comet Coffee, including Saborio himself, have a breadth of experience and pay close attention to detail to help elevate the customer experience.
“I know I have at least one, maybe two other baristas with 10 years of experience,” Saborio said. “It makes a difference. We take care of everything from the water to the grind and, hopefully, the proof is in the pudding.”
Saborio said the unique environment of Nickels Arcade has contributed to the popularity of Comet Coffee.
“I don’t know if we would have been successful had we not been in the Arcade,” Saborio said. “The Arcade is just such a fantastic landmark for Ann Arbor, and hopefully, we have the ambience here that does justice to what somebody would expect out of a business in the Arcade.”
Summer Managing News Editor Madison Hammond can be reached at madihamm@umich.edu.