Officially opened in February 2024, Look Alive Coffee (located at 1920 ½ 1st Ave S.) brings both approachable and experimental coffee blends to St. Pete. The owner, Kelly Packard, hosts pick-up times twice per week: Tuesday and Friday from 8am–10am.

Inside Look Alive, pallets are stacked with burlap sacks of un-roasted beans. Some are slashed open, ready to be poured into the roaster, which seems some wacky invention, a vent tube pipping through the ceiling, a drum turning over its axis, buttons and knobs flickering a-bleep. The roaster is nicknamed Minnie Pearl and is Kelley’s third child.

Look Alive Coffee predominantly sells to local cafes and businesses. “We are in the business of small businesses,” says Kelly. “If our clients succeed, we succeed.” Kelley wants Look Alive to operate on an all-in-one model: selling beans, equipment, and repairing equipment. However, even if you aren’t a small business, Look Alive Coffee does sell individual bags of beans.  

Look Alive experiments with co-ferments

Even though Look Alive Coffee isn’t a traditional coffee shop, the business feels more customer-friendly and neighborly. There’s no foot-shuffling, labyrinthine line curling out the door—no order-and-get-out-of-the-way kind of etiquette. Because of that, Kelly says she’s gotten to know each of her customers.

As a new customer, I inversely got to know a bit more about coffee. I’ve mostly only consumed “washed coffee”, I learn. Washed coffee is cleaned of mucilage, Kelly explains and gives a more chocolatey, caramel note. Naturally processed coffee, on the other hand, retains some mucilage on the seed, providing a fruity note. Both types are available at Look Alive, and they are and have been experimenting further.

Collaborating with Only Child, Look Alive co-fermented coffee bean “cherries” along with peaches. “Look Alive isn’t afraid to be different,” says Kelly, while Minnie Pearl tumbles her barrel full of roasting beans.