After close to three months of back and forth, Dr. Dhaval Patel is now moving forward with the purchase of the Grant Building from the Coastal Bend Distilling Company. The Grant Building will be remodeled and transformed into the Uncommon Market, a new epicurean experience for Beeville and the rest of South Texas.
“Kenneth Bethune and I have been partnering in a lot of different things for the last year give or take,” said Patel. “Given the growth we’ve had in our social community mission at the Coffee Barrel, we were just running out of space.”
After scouring Beeville for new locations, Patel finally brought forth to Bethune the idea of purchasing the building.
“We started about three months ago and, during that time period, I have been working behind the scenes with our architects who are from Corpus,” said Patel. “... We’ve signed papers and we’ve got a few last little things that we’ve gotta do and then we will be able to move forward.”
Patel’s vision for the new store is much larger than what he had for the Coffee Barrel. Patel is describing this new vision as “the hottest South Texas uncommon epicurean experience site. “
“That’s going to involve everything from food from around the world to beverages like wine and coffee and beer,” said Patel. “It’s going to be a place where our social community programs will be housed. We will have a cooking class set up. ... It will be a restaurant space where people will have wonderful meals.”
Patel described it as a wine bar, coffee shop, retail front and a place where people can communicate and connect to have truly uncommon experiences in Beeville’s own backyard. He wishes to make it a truly multi-faceted location for competitions, community gardens and a place where local farms can bring their ingredients to the table.
“I want people to be able to come through the Uncommon Market and when they are seeking truly awesome hip, cool, epicurean experiences, that’s the space that they go to,” said Patel.
While Patel has only been working to obtain the Grant Building for the past three months, the kernel for this idea has been in Patel’s head since before he opened the Coffee Barrel. Even now, Patel already has an idea for what the next phase will be after acquiring the Grant Building.
Once the Uncommon Market opens, Patel plans to close the Coffee Barrel location. However, Patel has not decided what he will do with the building once the location closes.
Now that Patel is finalizing the purchase of the building, he plans to remodel the Grant Building to be a modern, sleek space that still leans into the rustic wood ambiance Patel notes is already there.
“It’s going to be open spaces,” said Patel. “You can lounge around. It’s going to have a wonderful commercial kitchen where when we are doing stuff you can interface with the customers and community members that are already there.”
Patel’s vision has been years in the making. With the purchase of the Grant Building, Patel has taken the first steps to making that vision a reality.
•mtamez@mysoutex.com•