The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, a specialty coffee and tea cafe, is set to open at 15250 Dallas North Tollway this Friday, September 28. On Thursday, however, from 4:00 to 7:00 they're hosting an open house and customers can sample the goods for free.
The Coffee Bean is originally out of Southern California and has more than 850 stores in 23 countries; with several locations in Austin.Their coffee and tea menu runs pretty similar to Starbucks. They also have bagels, muffins, croissants, scones and the like, which are actually from Empire Baking Company -- tip o' the hat for the local angle. They'll also have a "variety of locally-produced lunch offerings ... throughout the day." So, maybe they just run out and pick up what sounds good? Cool.
Thankfully, The Coffee Bean does not have its own sizing system to adhere to, it's just a regular or a large. But, they do have a drive thru and free Wi-Fi bouncing all around, so all you work-from-homers have a new place to hang when you're feeling the need to be social.
Buried way down in the snazzy press release is a mention that Reid Ryan is the owner of this particular franchise, who after a quick run through the Googler is, in fact, son of Nolan Ryan. This place just got 10 extra points! Turns out the Ryan family (Nolan, Reid and Reese) are among some of the owners of the Austin franchises, which are actually called Lone Star Bean. And so this one is also technically a Lone Star Bean. The name thing is a little confusing... Did they know that if they just called it Nolan Ryan Coffee it'd be easy money?
