A new coffee roaster that focuses on specialty coffees is up and running at 1920 ½ 1st Avenue South, behind Spitfire Comedy House, in St. Petersburg’s Grand Central District.

Look Alive Coffee is owned and operated by Kelly Packard, who was born in Clearwater but then moved to Dallas, Texas with her family when she was still in elementary school.

“It’s really nice to be back here,” Packard said in an interview with St. Pete Rising. “I’ve always felt at home here. My parents are back here too, so it feels very ‘full circle’ being back at home.”

Look Alive Coffee is primarily a wholesale business, but anyone is welcome to order bags of coffee or sign up for a coffee subscription via the company’s website. In addition to offering shipping, customers also have the option of picking up their online orders directly from the roastery every Tuesday and Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Packard and her team roast coffee beans on site every Monday and Thursday, ensuring that customers are always getting the freshest coffee possible.

Currently available varieties include single-origin options like the Edwin Norena from Columbia, Roger Dominguez from Honduras, and Waykan from Guatemala. 

Two blends are available as well – The Mile High Blend, a medium roast of South American and African coffees, and the Westside Blend, a medium-dark blend with rotating South and Central American coffees. 

Look Alive also offers a decaf coffee called Colombia Huila, which Looks Alive’s website describes as, “everything a killer cup of coffee should taste like, sans caffeine. This decaf proudly holds its own next to its caffeinated brethren.”

“Our goal is to offer specialty coffee that is high quality, of course, and unique, but we also want our coffee to feel approachable,” Packard said.

“We don’t want to feel like a pretentious brand in any way. A lot of people just want a good cup of coffee; we want to provide that.”

For true coffee aficionados, Look Alive offers coffee subscriptions. For a fee that ranges from $19 to $32 per week, customers can have a 12-ounce bag of their favorite Look Alive Coffee variety delivered right to the door. Or for $22 per week, they can opt for a rotating subscription model if they’d like to be surprised. The coffee can be delivered already ground or in whole-bean form.

A sampler pack of three 4-ounce packages is also available if customers would like to try the various options before paying for a subscription.

Customers should keep an eye on the Look Alive Coffee website because selections will change based on what’s available from the various the countries that supply the coffee beans.

“One of our first offerings, it won’t even be available for wholesale because we don’t have that much of it,” Packard said. “We want it to be a limited release offering exclusively to our retail customers. We plan on doing more of that as time goes on — having some flagship coffees that are always available but also releasing limited edition coffees as well.”

She added, “A lot of people don’t realize that there is seasonality to coffee. Because it’s so omnipresent in our daily lives. We think there’s this cycle of constantly available coffee, but availability is based on the origin countries where the coffee has come from. There’s different weather patterns and harvest seasons, so that drives what we can carry.”

Packard has a background in graphic design and fine arts and graduated in 2009 from the prestigious Savannah College of Art and Design. She used that skillset to create Look Alive Coffee’s brand identity.

“Once I knew we were going to be starting the roastery,” she said, “it was cool to have full creative freedom and take this idea and run with it.”

On the wholesale side, Look Alive Coffee is already being served at Pete’s Bagels and The Crumb Factory, but Packard said she would like to collaborate with any local business that “wants to grow or develop a coffee program.” Co-working spaces and boutique hotels are also on her radar.

Wholesale customers, just like their retail counterparts, can place orders directly from the Look Alive Coffee website.

“One of our competitive advantages is that we're easy to work with,” Packard said, “with quick turnaround and free delivery within a five-mile radius.”

For more information and updates, visit Look Alive’s website and follow them on Instagram.