New Gulf Shores coffee shop brings local flavor

By Crystal Cole/Islander Editor
Posted 5/10/17

A Gulf Shores grad has returned to the gulf coast and is serving up java with style at her coffee shop, Foam.

Saidy Stoddard is a local native who graduated from Gulf Shores and went to college …

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New Gulf Shores coffee shop brings local flavor

Posted

A Gulf Shores grad has returned to the gulf coast and is serving up java with style at her coffee shop, Foam.

Saidy Stoddard is a local native who graduated from Gulf Shores and went to college in Chicago, but wanted to do something different for her home town. She said the idea for the coffee shop came to her because she wanted to make a change here and saw there was a need for a place like Foam.

“When I lived in Chicago, I lived across the street from Intelligensia, which is the coffee company we’re using to supply our coffee here,” Stoddard said. “When I moved back home, there was nowhere to get a good cup of coffee, so I saw there was a demand for it.”

Stoddard said it took some time for her to find the right location that was exactly what she wanted, somewhere that would be a haven for local residents.

“We looked around a little bit and thought about a place near the beach, but we wanted it to be a place where locals could come,” Stoddard said. “I feel like there aren’t very many places around here where locals can get together and just sit and talk and do stuff like this.”

The shop has a sleek, minimalistic feel that stands out from a lot of the places in this area.

“We spent a lot of time in California and in Costa Rica last year, so I definitely took a lot of our inspiration from that,” Stoddard said. “This is just kind of my type of style in general.”

Stoddard said she and her partner are currently working the store by themselves.

“It’s just me and him - that’s it,” Stoddard said. “We’re trying to do it by ourselves as long as we can and see what happens.”

Stoddard said the soft opening they had a few weeks ago went well and they’ve been pleased with the response thus far, after doing most of their marketing on Facebook and Instagram.

“We’ve had an amazing response,” Stoddard said.

Stoddard said Foam will try to stock local products as best as they can, and already have several regional products for sale at the shop.

“We get our cold brew from Birmingham,” Stoddard said. “Our tea is from Huntsville, the soaps are from Opelika, candles from Pensacola. We try to do local stuff.”

Foam Coffee and Shop is open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. To find out more about the shop, visit their website at foamcoffeeandshop.com.