By Mark Woolsey

Smyrna residents Gabriela Miles and her husband Greg had heard the talk from neighbors for a while: lamenting that Smyrna residents living north of busy Windy Hill Road lacked the neighborhood gathering spots found to the south.

“(People in the community) were just kind of starving for a coffee shop and neighborhood place where they could come and hang out with their friends and family,” she says.

So, the longtime Smyrna residents set about creating one with a business plan that’s now turned into brick and mortar.

Smyrna Coffee at 2264 Atlanta Road SE, Ste. 103, opened Jan 31. It offers a variety of caffeinated drinks, sandwiches, and light bites. It’s a cozy spot that caters to commuters dashing in for a cup and others lingering over their laptops.

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Visitors get a big smile and a welcoming attitude. And the neighborhood feel comes honestly: Miles can walk to work if she so chooses.  

That close-to-home attitude extends to the menu.

“We use a local Smyrna neighbor for our roaster, his beans are awesome,” she says.
 “He roasts an espresso blend for us and a medium blend for drip coffee from Guatemala. So we carry a product that no chain brand uses.”

Look for a variety of cappuccinos, espressos and lattes on the menu.

Miles has also put her own stamp on the compact food menu, which nonetheless covers quite a bit of ground. Her “Cuban-ish” sandwich is a slightly different spin, offering oven-roasted pork instead of the more traditional slow-roasted variety. It’s a flavor explosion. A chocolate croissant was light, flavor-packed, and a good companion to a steaming cup.

Other sammies include blackened turkey and cheese, a veggie delight, an open-faced tuna melt and her version of a grinder.

She says they’ve gotten good feedback so far- including an endorsement from a lady grinding on a laptop at a nearby table.

“She(Miles) loves everybody and I really think it’s really  blessing to this side of the community,” said Jonitha Willis of Powder Springs, who said she was working on her own business plan.

Miles indicates that, having no prior food establishment experience, she had a good amount of training to do on the ins and outs of restaurants.

Even with help from her businessman husband, such things as monitoring inventory, hiring employees, and doing payroll represented a learning curve.

Miles says the couple gathered a lot of feedback from people in the community prior to opening the doors to the tidy spot tucked into a small strip shopping center. With that guidance in hand, she feels confident they’ve created a place that the neighborhood will take to as its own.