Housed inside Down to Earth Garden Center in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is a sweet spot to stop for coffee, lunch or even reserve the space for an event. The Five & Two Café was born after owner Benjamin Polzin went touring garden centers and landing on an enticing food service experience in Philadelphia. Polzin wanted to create a similar concept at Down to Earth, giving shoppers a place to relax and landscape customers a venue to meet.
So at first, Polzin invited a local coffee shop to set up inside the garden center. But, the traffic wasn’t there to make the arrangement a real success for the owner, and Down to Earth recognized its food service needed to be an in-house effort. So within a year, Polzin hired a café manager with some experience.
Polzin says the café is “not the most profitable, but it gives our landscape customers a place to sit down, grab a coffee and go over a proposal, and it’s a place where friends can meet out for breakfast or lunch and shop our greenhouses,” Polzin says.
Food service is a complement to the plant business and it adds to the experience Polzin wants customers to have when they visit Down to Earth. The menu includes gourmet cracker crust pizzas, panini sandwiches, local ingredients and sweet treats to go with specialty coffee drinks.
“It’s an extra service for our customers,” Polzin says of the concept.