Now offering a warm and sweet respite from the wintry chill of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is the first brick-and-mortar location of Daylily Coffee.
The focus inside the approximately 1,200-square-foot shop is primarily on in-house small-batch roasting and baking operations. Currently, the shop welcomes guests on weekends, with plans to gradually extend retail hours.
Upon entering, guests are greeted by a vibrant orange and pink accent wall, evoking the company’s namesake summery blossoms. The shop’s ambiance, characterized by vibrant colors, leafy potted plants and a Latin American panaderia vibe, reflects Daylily Coffee Cofounder and Baker Ariana Vandersnick’s Mexican heritage.
“Coffee is a thing that is produced elsewhere in the world,” Daylily’s other cofounder, Andrew Fritz, recently told Daily Coffee News. “So we wanted to pull some roots from Central and South America. My wife’s Mexican, so that helps and plays into it. We took a little Central American inspiration and went with that.”
Daily Coffee Cofounders Andrew Fritz and Ariana Vandersnick. Photo by Carly Holmstrom, courtesy of Daylily Coffee.
Daylily is currently roasting one day per week on an early-model 3-kilo Mill City Roasters machine, providing freshly roasted coffees for walk-in sales, online purchases and wholesale clients. The roasting business is complemented by the bakery operation, which remains small and committed to local sourcing and ingredients.
Fritz started professionally in coffee as a barista for Sioux Falls-based Coffea Roasterie before joining the roasting staff. He stayed with the company for more than 10 years, eventually acquiring an ownership stake.
After meeting in 2018, Fritz and Vandersnick eventually moved to to Portland, Oregon, where Fritz became the head roaster for Proud Mary Coffee USA.
In July 2022, they returned to South Dakota to launch Daylily Coffee with online orders and occasional pop-ups, leveraging Fritz’s connections over the years for green coffee sourcing.
“I have lots of friends that I still haven’t dipped into yet but they’re aware of my reckoning,” said Fritz. “We’ll have people in more countries and more connections going forward.”
As Daylily Coffee refines its operations in Sioux Falls, Fritz envisions the possibility of opening a standalone cafe, potentially in the Rapid City area, near Vandersnick’s hometown.
“We just want to get this thing running so we can hit it, do what we love, hang out with coffee people, drink more coffee, visit more farmers, hang out with producers and bring them up here to taste the coffee,” said Fritz. “I just want to share coffee and hang out with cool people. That’s really the goal of Daylily, to just be good — and be good for the community and the coffee world.”
Daylily Coffee is located at 1010 E 8th St, Suite 100, in Sioux Falls. Tell DCN’s editors about your new coffee shop or roastery here.
Howard Bryman Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
