Creativity is the foundation to West Ashley’s trendy new coffee shop and eatery
by Lorne Chambers | Editor
Saying that Café Roca is more than a coffee shop is a bit of an understatement. Sure, it serves up fantastic espresso concoctions and traditional coffee shop fare, such as bagels, muffins, and scones. But this new West Ashley hot spot is so much more than that.
It’s a breakfast spot with wildly inventive offerings, such as their breakfast wontons, which are every bit as delicious as they are Instagramable. For $5, you get three Wontons stuffed with eggs, whipped herb cream cheese, bacon, green onion, eel sauce, and siracha aioli. There’s also breakfast Street Tacos, a Guava Pastry, and Green Eggs and Ham, which is a twist on a deviled egg. It’s essentially a hard-boiled egg with an avocado, basil, mayo, and lime filling pipped in and topped with crispy prosciutto. These are just some of the menu items that owner Joe Walker calls “traffic bites.”
“I wanted to create a line of food that you could have on your lap while driving to work,” says Walker, who previously owned and operated Stereo 8 on Folly Road, a place that was perhaps ahead of its time for James Island.
Café Roca is also a hip lunch spot with equally unique midday grub, like its Duck Sandwich, a riff on a Bahn Mi with seared duck breast, pickled vegetables, cilantro, tamari glaze, and yum-yum sauce served on a fresh-baked hoagie roll. There’s also Café Roca’s take on New York City’s famed Chopped Cheese Sandwich, as well as other creative sandwiches and a variety of healthy bowl and salad options.
Café Roca gets its pastries down Highway 61 in West Ashley at Little Peanut Bakery, breads from Radical Bread Co. in Mt. Pleasant, and coffee beans from boutique roaster Riptide Coffee in North Charleston.
The food isn’t the only atypical aspect of Café Roca. The entire place is an extension of the creativity of its owners: Walker, his wife Diana, who also owns Shift Pilates Body Shop next door, and West Ashley native and longtime business partner Shannon Wakeland.
“l love the idea of generating an energy. I love the idea of creating our own energy, a kind of creative vortex in here,” says Walker.
The energy of Café Rocca certainly borrows some from Stereo 8, including an undeniable connection to music. Walker says Diana came up with the name “Roca,” which is Spanish for “rock,” as in rock ‘n’ roll, which permeates almost every part of the café, from the art on the wall to the vintage music magazines to the names of the drinks. On the day we visited, the special was the “Beast of Burden,” a nod to the classic The Rolling Stones tune, which consists of a potent combination of chilled espresso, Cheerwine soda, and mocha syrup.
Every month, Walker personally chooses a playlist based on the season and his mood. A decade ago at Stereo 8, he used to burn mixed CDs and include them with customers’ checks. Now, at Café Roca, patrons can simply scan a QR code to get Walker’s monthly playlist on their phone. In the back of the restaurant is a listening nook, where patrons can take a break from doom scrolling and latte-sipping, put on a pair of headphones, and listen to one of 20 rotating CDs that Walker hand-picks. For those of us old enough to remember, it’s a setup that’s reminiscent of downtown Charleston’s Millennium Music in the ’90s.
While Walker’s passion for music is infused into every element of Café Roca, including its name, Wakeland says that the “Roca” also pays homage to her West Ashley roots. A graduate of St. Andrew’s High School, Wakeland points out the school’s mascot was the “Rocks,” before it closed and merged with Middleton High to form West Ashley High in 2000.
Wakeland first met Walker after he closed Stereo 8 nearly a decade ago. Needing a break from the grind of the restaurant business, Walker started working at Wakeland’s vacation rental cleaning service. He eventually became a partner in High Tide Cleaning, and the two developed a working relationship that has proven to be a recipe for success.
Eventually, the restaurant bug bit Walker again, and the idea of opening a coffee shop with inventive breakfast and lunch offerings quickly took shape in his mind. When A Salt & Battered closed on Ashley River Road late last year, the opportunity was too good to pass up. The Walkers and Wakeland swiftly embarked on a significant renovation, and before anyone could begin to decipher the cryptic message—”Looking 4 Bulls hello@caferoca”—scrawled on brown paper in the front window, Café Roca was open for business.
The ugly drop ceilings that previously existed were removed to expose large, rustic wooden beams. The bland drywall at the front of the shop was stripped away to display the brick underneath. A stylish, mid-century modern couch now anchors the center of the room, and mounted pieces of pop art adorn the wall amidst dozens of draping plants.
“My family thought I was absolutely crazy,” admits Wakeland, whose shrewd business sensibilities serve as a counterbalance to Walker’s more imaginative ambitions. At the same time, Walker’s wife Diana’s experience in the practice of Pilates seems to serve the trio well, providing a steady and disciplined perspective to their dealings. Together, they recognize and respect each other’s strengths—and it seems to be paying off. The cleaning business is thriving, the Pilates studio, which opened last summer, is bustling with fit (or soon-to-be fit) clients, and since Café Roca’s opening in late February, finding a seat can be challenging at certain times of the day.
“We’re really excited about the reception we’ve received so far,” says Walker before letting the cat out of the bag that Café Roca and Shift Pilates Body Shop are just the first phase of their plans. In February, while renovating the former A Salt and Battered space, neighboring Taco Bartina closed after a respectable 16-year run. Property manager Ed Kronsberg then began talking to the Walkers and Wakeland about the possibility of doing something with the much larger space next door.
If Wakeland’s family thought she was crazy for opening a coffee shop and restaurant, then one can only imagine what they thought when she informed them that they intended to divide the much larger former Taco Bartina space into thirds and open three more completely different businesses in the same shopping center over the next several months.
The corner space adjacent to Home Team BBQ will soon be a small neighborhood convenience store reminiscent of a New York bodega. Appropriately named The Corner Store, it will offer standard provisions like cold drinks, beer, and snacks, as well as local artisan food products. Construction is already underway, and Walker expects it to be completed within weeks.
To the right of The Corner Store will be Study Hall, a long, narrow room serving as a work-share space where people can rent devoted workstations, equipped with desks, high-speed Wi-Fi, a printer, and, of course, fresh coffee.
The third upcoming concept is perhaps the most ambitious. The largest of the three new subdivided spaces will soon be an Italian bistro, offering slightly upscale, classic Italian dishes made with house-made pasta. Wakeland and Walker hope that the restaurant renovations will begin soon and it’ll open sometime this summer.
The longtime friends and business partners beam with excitement when they talk about their upcoming plans for the shopping center and the early success of Café Roca. Behind them, a young woman walks into the listening nook, pulls back her hair, and places on the headphones. She pulls down Rage Against the Machine’s 1996 masterpiece Evil Empire, places it in the CD player, and smiles as she bobs her head along to the music.
A Rage album is appropriate at this moment. In this place. Café Roca represents a small act of rebellion, a revolution against the dreary malaise that all too often plagues this side of town. It’s a small victory for West Ashley in it’s ongoing effort to revitalize and rebrand itself.
“West Ashley doesn’t need to be revitalized,” says Walker, pausing to take a sip of his coffee. “It just needs some new life breathed into it. That’s all we’re trying to do.”
Café Rocca is open weekdays from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m. and from 7 a.m. until 2 p.m. on the weekends. It’s located at 1303 Ashley River Road. For more information visit www.caferoca.com.
