Walk into The Roast House in downtown Brownsville and the first impression is how much space it occupies.

The formerly cozy coffee shop on Alton Gloor Road in north Brownsville has grown dramatically since its move to downtown in the latter half of 2022. There’s 5,700 square feet of space put to use for community events, group meetings and of course, great coffee. 

The Roast House is a “full-blown coffee shop,” says its owner, Esequiel Silva, meaning it makes its coffees in house. Black and silver roaster equipment is within easy view behind the shop’s long bar. Steam rises from one of the roaster barrels as a silver fan whirls the beans round and round. The finished products will be placed in one- and five-pound bags and sold directly to its customers.

Silva, a Brownsville native, is enthused about the move to downtown and being part of a movement to revive the city’s historic core. 

“Downtown is the jewel of Brownsville,” said Silva, who operates the coffee shop with his daughter, Esmeralda, and son, Esequiel II. “It all started here.”

Going Big

Opening in 2016, the original location of The Roast House was like visiting a favorite relative’s house with comfy couches. 

The Gloor Road location had 1,200 square feet of space. In that way, it was much like many of the independent coffee houses that have sprouted up in the Valley. They tend to be cozy over being grand in size. The new Roast House on East Washington Street goes the other way. The downtown site is more than four times larger than its successor.

It exudes a sense of place with iconic images of Brownsville featured on its walls as painted by local muralists. The elder Silva is a businessman through and through, owning a trucking company for nearly two decades. The coffee shop gives Silva an outlet to express pride in his hometown. 

He was initially a skeptic about moving downtown due to limited parking. It was also a time before restaurants and other leisure-oriented businesses began relocating to the city’s center. Discussions with the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation began to change his mind as did grants provided by the BCIC via funding provided by Elon Musk’s foundation. 

“The city, BCIC and SpaceX were instrumental in helping us make the transition,” Silva said of moving downtown.

Nathan Burkhart, the director of business development for BCIC, said The Roast House move is one of many business and residential developments in recent years as the city makes improvements to the downtown area.

“The city continues to invest in the underlying infrastructure, and as we increase residential density, we will have a downtown that is not only family friendly, but will have baked in components that address affordable housing and entertainment for all,” Burkhart said. “The fact that we are seeing continued investment and redevelopment in the area is a testament to hard work of organizations like the BCIC and those downtown advocates who always saw the potential our hidden gem could be.”

Downtown Haven

On a recent morning, Silva chats about doing business downtown as his daughter Esmeralda prepares coffee selections for customers filtering in and out of the shop.

The Roast House is popular with students from the nearby University of Texas Rio Grande Valley campus and city employees who walk over from nearby municipal offices. The coffee shop is also a frequent stop for police officers and Border Patrol agents. They all have a wide choice of selections to choose from, be it a French vanilla latte to a Texas pecan flavor to flavors originating from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.

Esequiel II, meanwhile, is looking over the roasters as coffee beans from around the world are prepared and blended for sale by the pound. A blackboard high up behind the counter touts coffee choices by the bag from Africa, India, Indonesia and Latin America. 

There’s plenty of room to be had at this coffee house. Its active social media posts feature events like a recent Market Day at The Roast House with a classic car show upfront on Washington Street. It also hosts yoga classes and paint and sip get-togethers for local artists.

Standing out front on Washington by the front door of his business, Silva described what he wants The Roast House to be. 

“We want to be a place where people enjoy hanging out,” he said. “Just come here, congregate and enjoy yourself with what we have to offer.”