Memphis has a noteworthy new coffee destination, following the December 2025 opening of Cxffeeblack’s headquarters. Located in the city’s Mitchell Heights neighborhood, the new, multifunctional space marks the culmination of a five-year journey for Cxffeeblack’s founders, Renata Henderson and Bartholomew Jones. The two started out roasting coffee in their home, and began sharing it with their community at their Anti Gentrification Cxffee Club pop-up.
The grand opening of Cxffeeblack’s new headquarters, which kicked off on Dec. 11, 2025, was a multi-day event, with a ribbon-cutting, coffee ceremony, and live music throughout the weekend. Since then, the new space has been well received by the local community. “Sales have been up 345% from the previous pop-up,” Jones says. “It’s been so cool just to see how having a place we can really call our home has meant so much to the community.”
Five Years in the Making
The headquarters—just down the street from the former pop-up location—comprise a coffee shop, roastery, and an education and event space. Cxffeeblack has worked towards moving to a permanent home since 2021, when Henderson and Jones toured the building with a local neighborhood development organization.
“We were doing the pop-up, which was dope,” Jones says. “It was an important piece in our neighbourhood, specifically. And I think the next step was really like, ‘Okay, how do we own land? How do we have a space where we can really have self-determination?’”
The new space took this long to come to fruition in part because Jones and Henderson are always working on several projects at once. Since beginning the planning process for the headquarters, Cxffeeblack has also launched the Barista Exchange Program, filmed a documentary of the founders’ first trip to Africa, started a merch line, sold a T-shirt using the world’s first Black-owned cotton supply chain, and more.
Along the way, the company has also won multiple awards, including Notable Roaster at the 2024 Sprudgies and the inaugural Innovator of the Year award from the Coffee Coalition for Racial Equity that same year.
Another reason for the five-year wait was the need to raise money to buy the land and renovate the building, which had sat empty for 30 years. Investment came from Memphis businesses and musicians, as well as from the local community. Collectively, Cxffeeblack raised more than $400,000 through a Wefunder equity crowdfunding campaign. This approach, Jones says, gives the neighborhood a direct financial stake in Cxffeeblack’s success.
“We share equity with over 500 of our neighbors and friends and customers and colleagues,” Jones says. “In many ways, the reason why the revenue has grown so much, the reason why—in a world where so many coffee shops are closing—we can’t keep anything in stock, is because it actually belongs to people. It has a place, it has a name, it has a culture.”
The Idea District
Cxffeeblack was originally conceived of as a way to sell merch and support Jones’ music, so an important part of the new headquarters was forging a connection to Memphis’ creative and music scenes.
As well as receiving investment from local hip hop icon 8Ball, Cxffeeblack has partnered with Memphis creative agency and record label Unapologetic to form a creative zone in the neighborhood. As part of the collaboration, Unapologetic will open a retail store and creative space called Weird Is Normal inside Cxffeeblack’s former pop-up location.
“So many times when neighbourhoods get redeveloped, especially in places like Memphis, the people who are moving in and the businesses that are getting brought in have really no connection to the natural roots of that community,” Jones says. But given that the two had teamed up in the past, on a documentary soundtrack and coffee tie-ins for artists, it felt natural that Unapologetic would take over Cxffeeblack’s former space.
“I think seeing more things like that is honestly what’s going to keep coffee relevant, outside of it simply being a quantitatively good experience because of the cupping score,” he continues. “Are the pour-overs amazing? Yes. Is the espresso dialed in? Yes. And also, it’s genuinely a good time. There are people coming up with songs and brands and ideas and stories right across the street, and those cultures are bleeding over into each other, and they’re spurring innovation across the board.”
History and Culture
Everything Cxffeeblack does is immersed in history and culture, and the idea of helping to reclaim the coffee industry for Black businesspeople and communities. The new headquarters are, as the press release puts it, “what happens when cxffee returns to Black hands—when ownership, innovation, and culture become the same sentence.”
The building itself has a history. Jones explains that, when they received the purchase agreement for the new headquarters, they found out that the land used to be part of a cotton plantation. National Street, the building’s cross street, was a red line during segregation, dividing the area into wealthy white and poor Black neighborhoods. “There’s so much real, lived history and community,” Jones says.
From its location, to the multiple partnerships with Memphis creatives, to the fact that the bulk of its investment came from the neighborhood, Cxffeeblack’s new headquarters are rooted in its locality while at the same time promoting it to a global audience. Jones says they’ve had people visit from many different countries, but also attracted new customers from the neighborhood.
That mix of local and global is important, he says. “We’re showing the world what it means for our communities to be able to tell their own stories.”
