Local coffee shop Arcade Coffee Roasters gave local artist and student at California Baptist University new space for a mural on its building.
The coffee shop plans to expand its shop outdoors for summer and it started with a new art piece done by Arcade employee and CBU student Andrew Pirkle, sophomore applied theology major.
Starting out as just a pop-up shop that now has its own central location, Arcade wants to continue to draw more customers and continue to stay true to its mission.
“We want to enrich lives by inspiring others to create shared moments, relationships and a sense of belonging for all,” said Shane Levario and Stevie Hasemeyer, Arcade owners, on their website in the mission statement.
Pirkle started out as a social media intern in 2016 at Arcade and is now a full-time employee as a barista.
Pirkle was given a month to complete the idea for the mural and execute it. After creating the design, Pirkle got to work on the wall and finished in only three days.
“When that area actually opens up and people are out there at that point I know people will finally see it and really appreciate it,” Pirkle said. “But right now it’s just humbling to do something and have to sit on it and wait and not get immediate recognition for it. But, I’m OK because I’m just grateful for the opportunity.”
Hasemeyer spoke to Pirkle about doing a mural outside of the shop because they were already planning to expand outdoors and said he wanted to give the area more life.
The idea behind the project was to make it a place that customers would want to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee or breakfast pastry.
When talking about doing a mural outside they kept in mind that they were planning to do outdoor seating and wanted to turn it into a place where students or locals could hang out come summertime.
Chanelle Canfield, manager at Arcade coffee and CBU alumna, explained the importance of using someone they knew to do the artwork and what it would mean to customers and friends of the artist.
“Pirkle was the best artist that we wanted to have do it. Plus, he’s a great part of our team and we wanted to honor him in that way. Art is a pretty big thing for Arcade and we work with a lot of designers. We have a lot of talented people on our team and we wanted to showcase that,” Canfield said.
When asked about the possible outdoor setting, Canfield said, “We are looking to revamp the outside of our building. We did it starting with repainting the outside of our building charcoal grey to make it look a little cleaner, a little nicer. We don’t know exactly what we are going to do with the space yet but we definitely want to make it more solidified.”
The mural itself includes the skeleton of a cow and chopped up pieces of meat that are spread out all over the walls. Hasemeyer gave Pirkle the original idea of meat on a cow and Pirkle ran with the idea and incorporated the skeleton.
Canfield said Arcade Coffee Roasters plans to continue to make their mission statement to be a place for all people and to create shared moments.
