ARLINGTON, Texas—About five months ago, the Kammaz family extended its business to now include a coffee shop that sells baklava and specialty coffee.
The Baklava Bakery and Coffee Co., located at 3115 W. Arkansas Lane, has expanded its property at the same location to now include a coffee shop attached to the original bakery.
“We’ve had a lot of people drive by and see [the other] side, and they’re open at night,” manager and son of the owners, Noah Kammaz, said. “Everyone always said they wanted to go get pita bread and baklava, but they hadn’t been able to do so. This side has let everyone enjoy [with] more accessibility.”
Before opening the coffee shop side of their business, the Kammaz family started with a wholesale business that sold baklava and pita.
“[The business] initially started with the bakery side, and that was about 19 years ago,” Noah Kammaz said. “That was mostly run by my uncle and my dad. They had this storefront side, but that got too busy for them, and they got this side.”
After seeing the lack of coffee shops in the area and the success of their bakery business, the owners decided to expand the original business to now include a separate coffee shop.
“There didn’t seem to be many [coffee shops] in the area,” one of the founders, Lisa Kammaz, said. “The neighborhood has well received it. Everyone’s coming up and saying they needed it and liked it, and we’ve been pretty busy since day one.”
Before opening the shop, the family had to become well versed in making the new drink items. Lisa Kammaz went with one of her sons to a coffee school for prep, while her other son “got really into coffee and started learning all about it.”
“[Coffee school] was a full day of learning about types of coffee,” Noah Kammaz said. “That brings how to make them, the source of the coffee, a little bit of how to run a coffee business and just being able to take care of the responsibilities.”
The business is run by the whole family, with each member taking on a different part at the two companies. Noah Kammaz works at the coffee shop side and helps with managing the day to day at the shop.
“Whenever they started with me, it was kind of figured this was going to be a group project,” Noah Kammaz said. “[Managing] was mostly built on the experience from [the other] side. [My dad] helped in the beginning, but once we got it down, he kind of stepped away.”
Though their coffee shop has only been open for five months, the Kammaz family plans to expand and improve the business even more.
“Eventually, we plan to hopefully expand [the other] side and push it towards just a bigger area,” Noah Kammaz said. “We also have a coffee roaster we ordered, so eventually roasting. Hopefully when we get that all down, we’ll open another location somewhere.”