We are excited to share something that has been almost two years in the making: the Greenhouse Café at our MRT North Venice location is officially soft open.
The idea behind the café is simple. We want to make shopping at MRT even more enjoyable by giving our customers a place to grab a drink, enjoy a fresh pastry, cool off with something refreshing, and spend a little more time in a fun, inviting environment. Whether you are shopping for plants, browsing clothing and gifts, meeting a friend, or just stopping in for coffee, the Greenhouse Café was created to be another reason to enjoy your visit.
For our soft opening, the café is open Wednesday through Sunday from 8 AM to 2 PM. This will likely be our schedule for the month of June as we continue refining the menu, training our team, and building toward our full café experience.
One of the biggest priorities for us was finding brands and vendors we could be proud to serve. For coffee, we are partnering with Lucky Goat Coffee, based out of Tallahassee.
Our café menu includes hot coffee, iced coffee, espresso drinks, cold brew, matcha, chai tea, energy refreshers, lemonade refreshers, and other great beverage options. We also created several plant-themed drink combinations and fruit refreshers to match the atmosphere of MRT and give customers something fun to try each time they visit.
We also wanted pricing to be simple and customer-friendly. Our drink prices include tax, and there is no upcharge for milk options or sweetener options. Medium hot and iced drinks are $4 all-in, and large hot and iced drinks are $5 all-in. That means you can choose your drink, flavor, and milk option without needing to calculate add-ons at the register.
Along with coffee and drinks, we are now offering pastries and baked goods from Nino’s Bakery in Punta Gorda. Nino’s is a family-owned bakery, and they will be delivering fresh goods frequently so we can keep a rotating selection of bakery favorites available for our customers.
Current bakery offerings include items like bagels, muffins, cookies, croissants, cinnamon rolls, danishes, and other sweet and savory treats. These pair perfectly with coffee, cold brew, or a refresher while you shop or take a break inside the store.
Opening the Greenhouse Café has been a long process, and we are proud of the work that went into getting it right.
Over the past two years, we have worked through planning, approvals, licensing, and coordination with the City, health department plans, and the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. There were a lot of steps behind the scenes before we could serve our first cup of coffee, and each one helped us create a café that is set up to grow the right way.
We have also spent time carefully choosing our vendors, focusing on Florida-based partners, fresh products, and ingredients we feel good about offering to our customers. From Lucky Goat Coffee to Nino’s Bakery, our goal is to serve items that reflect the same quality and care we try to bring to the rest of the MRT experience.
The soft opening is just the beginning. Over the next few weeks and months, we plan to continue expanding the Greenhouse Café menu with more offerings.
We recently received approval for our beer and wine license, and we expect to begin serving beer starting this weekend. We are also working on adding soft serve ice cream, hard ice cream, smoothies, açaí bowls, and additional café foods such as soups, sandwiches, and other easy bites over time.
As the café grows, we will continue testing new items, listening to customer feedback, and building a menu that fits the space, the store, and the community.
More than anything, we want the Greenhouse Café to make MRT North Venice feel even more welcoming.
We love the idea of customers coming in to shop for plants and clothing, then staying for coffee, a pastry, or a cold drink. We want it to be a place where you can bring a friend, enjoy something fresh, and take your time exploring everything MRT has to offer.
Our team is excited to serve as both baristas and friendly hosts, helping create the kind of relaxed and enjoyable environment we always imagined for this café. We are grateful to everyone who has supported this project along the way, and we are excited to finally start sharing it with our customers.
Stop by the Greenhouse Café during our soft opening at MRT North Venice, Wednesday through Sunday from 8 AM to 2 PM. Grab a Lucky Goat Coffee, try a fresh bakery treat from Nino’s, and enjoy a new way to experience MRT.