Garbage Goat Coffee Co. reopens with rebrewed emphasis on community

A new coffee shop just opened on the corner of Hamilton and Sharp. Well, sort of.

Garbage Goat Coffee Co. is the reimagining of a café called Roots Coffee Kitchen that closed down in the same spot in 2023, two years after opening. Both are owned by Amanda and Nick Byrd.

Though born and raised in Spokane, it was the time she spent in Southern California that inspired co-owner Amanda Byrd to create Roots – a health-conscious food option geared towards Gonzaga University students.

“My passion behind Roots was I was really into the vegan, plant-based lifestyle, but it didn’t do as well as probably a city who lives in the sunshine,” she said. “I’m also not plant-based anymore.”

Byrd and her husband and business partner, Nick Byrd, closed down Roots, subleasing their building to Tito’s Italian Bistro until their grand reopening on Oct. 15. This time around, the couple is meeting Spokane where it’s at – while keeping the smoothie bowls and avocado toast they were known for the first time.

With the B-52s and Billy Idol playing on the TV, colorful sofas tucked away in sunlit nooks and a rustic accent wall, Amanda Byrd said the focus is just to have a “really cozy place for people to come and study.” The Garbage Goat name is an effort to connect the city’s newcomers to Spokane’s attractions.

“I just feel like Spokane gets this rap of just being this dirty, not fun, downer place to be at,” she said. “It’s just something to be able to say, hey this happened, the garbage goat is downtown, it’s a really cool place. Riverfront Park is really fun. The snow here does suck at times – it gets really cold – but there are really different, cool areas of Spokane that I feel people don’t really know about.”

Every Sunday, the Byrds host a meetup at the garbage goat in Riverfront Park to “feed” the goat and encourage people to recycle.

“This is really community driven for us. It’s about creating a healthier lifestyle in the community,” Nick Byrd said.

Nick Byrd also owns Byrdie Golf Design, a direct-to-consumer golf club company. He said that he has always wanted to open a coffee shop.

“I’m very entrepreneurial, so running a business is just kind of how my mind works,” he said.

The café closing for a year and a half wasn’t solely for rebranding. The Byrds have five kids in their blended family – Levi, Rylan, Summer, Evia and Axel – and wanted to prioritize their extracurriculars as much as possible, while Amanda completed an internship for a master’s in social work .

“You kind of have to be married to this place a little bit in order to make it work,” she said, adding that “the timing was just perfect to reopen” now that the kids are older.

Beyond toasts and lattes, Amanda Byrd said that her real passion is in mental health care and the younger generation. Before Roots and Garbage Goat Coffee Co., she worked for five years in mental healthcare.

“I feel like my absolute purpose is to be in the mental health field for the rest of my life,” Byrd said, adding that she is working with a recovery organization in the area about hosting alcoholics, narcotics and overeaters anonymous meetings in the café. “I really feel like everybody is just a couple bad decisions away from being in another person’s position and we’re so quick to judge, so that’s kind of the passion around this whole entire place.”

Though they don’t yet have authorization to hire employees under 18 years old, the Byrds have been involving their children in the business, with multiple food items on the menu inspired by them – Axel’s Panini and the Evia smoothie, to name a couple. The goal is to provide a space for young workers to build their soft skills and make money.

“I think that it’s important for kids to want to work, and I think that a lot of times kids feel shut down, like they go to work and they have a boss that’s going to dictate things for them rather than view them as an equal,” she said. “So I think when you’re able to come into a place and have your voice heard and your ideas heard, it allows you to open your mind up and kind of explore those different areas and build self-esteem, build self-confidence to be able to take that (where they go next).”

The pair plan to let their oldest son, Levi, 17, take over the business after he graduates high school, if he wants to.

“Eventually, I want to go back to work in the mental health field,” Amanda Byrd said. “But for the time being, grow it to where we can have high school and college kids kind of run it and incorporate that with our actual kids.”

Moving forward, Amanda Byrd said she is looking to hire an events coordinator so that Garbage Goat Coffee Co. can have live music nights and get further involved in the community.

“We want to serve people healthy food, and we just want to educate people on the importance of enjoying where you live and providing just a cozy environment for all ages.”