UNT Alumni Open Eagle Cawfee in Downtown Denton

Denton's newest coffee shop is nestled inside the back corner of Studio LaSalle on the iconic town square. The setup is a simple white counter, a table, two couches and a back door (also used as their front door) leading to a patio.

Alyson Flores and Francisco Delgado founded Eagle Cawfee; this venture is a nod to their alma mater, the University of North Texas, which sports an eagle as a mascot ("caw!"). The grand opening weekend was in early February, and many of their coffee cart pop-up customers showed up.

“We've had a lot of support, I mean, people who have followed us throughout,” Flores says. “It's very cool. We've been very lucky.”

The couple met during first-year orientation at the University of North Texas. Flores is a coffee connoisseur who roped Delgado into discovering Denton's best cup of joe. After a while, Delgado suggested they make their own coffee.

“We've tried every coffee shop here in Denton, and it's all the same vibe, you know, and we love a lot of it, but it's all very rustic, and the same drinks just a different name,” Delgado says. “We want to bring something different here to Denton and grow.”

They partnered with Voltage Coffee Project, which supplies beans to several Denton coffee shops. Flores and Delgado love finding ways to make their menu fun with drinks like the horchata latte, dulce de leche latte and the hormatcha latte that reflect their Latin culture.

Eagle Cawfee started in June 2024 to sell coffee bags via a website. However, revenue from the coffee bags alone was low, so they decided to expand their business. Luckily, UNT's Business Leadership Building contacted the pair to serve their coffee at a Community Coffee Series event.

This allowed them to showcase their coffee, but they only had a week to figure out the logistics of running a coffee cart.

“We built our cart from scratch, and we just watched a bunch of videos of people who do coffee carts,” Flores says. “We severely overpacked for the first event because we had no idea what to expect. But that all took place within a week, like, figuring out what we were serving, how we were serving, building our cart – it was a lot.”

Since that initial event, Eagle Cawfee has hosted pop-ups at Denton Square, including the grand opening of The Plot Twist Romance Bookstore & Bar, which had over 700 people at its opening.

They gained new loyal customers at that event, and afterward, the owner of Studio LaSalle asked Flores and Delgado to move Eagle Cawfee inside their salon.

“I think from the very first time she reached out to us, I was like, ‘That is extremely validating, like, someone would want to see us somewhere permanently,’” Flores says. “People who have come out since the very early days, who still come out, is so validating like they have seen our menu change five times already, and they still want to come out and try us.”

They aim to open a coffee shop and bookstore in a year but will continue developing the brand. They have a small cart full of books for sale, and Flores says a Little Free Library is coming to their patio soon.

Eagle Cawfee's space is limited, but they hope to eventually make everything from scratch, add more seasonal drinks, sell pastries and start hiring more help.

“This business is so worth it, but like, we will burn ourselves out so fast if we're doing 10 hours every single day,” Flores says. “So, step one is hiring, and then eventually move into our own spot and kind of keep expanding from there.”

Eagle Cawfee, 101 N. Elm St., Open 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday-Monday.