AM Coffee & Co. Opens in Southbury

Less than a year ago, we covered Amanda Eng in our Q&A series, “It’s a Woman’s World,” with a focus on her coffee pop up, Kash & Liv Coffee Creations. Along with popping up all over the Newtown, Sandy Hook, and Danbury areas, Eng found a home as a coffee vendor inside of Uncle Matt’s Bakery and Cafe in the fall of 2023. Just over a year later, right before the holiday season, Eng teamed up with her customer-turned-friend, Meghan Jefts, to open a spot of their own.

At AM Coffee & Co. in Southbury, Eng, a self-professed coffee nerd since she was 14, is continuing her coffee journey that saved her from corporate America.

“I was managing call center teams for MetLife,” she says. “Coffee was a side gig since fall 2022 for about a year. It started to take off and I figured I should probably get an LLC so I’m doing things the right way. In corporate, when you mentally check out, you’re done. I felt myself checking out and putting more into coffee. I was taking PTO to do coffee jobs. It became so busy that it was a weekly thing. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep up the charade. I had a bad day and I joked with Matt (Kirshner) at Uncle Matt’s Bakery and I told him to hire me. I was ready to just be a barista. He told me to come in as a vendor.”

Eng’s Kash & Liv Coffee Creations—named after her twins—and all the pop ups combined with foot traffic from Uncle Matt’s, led to a connection that led to opening up AM Coffee.

“We became friends out of my obsession with her coffee!” Jefts says. “I was a customer and Amanda had a pop-up event at NewSylum (Brewing). I told my husband, Andy, to put the kids in the car. I saved her number in my phone because that’s how you place your order (at the pop ups). In my phone, her contact is still Liv Coffee. I got coffee from her at least once a week. We have a lot in common because we’re both moms and we both live in the area. It’s a mom-to-mom type of thing.”

Eng chimes in, “She picks up my kids and brings them to school. Meghan always checked on me no matter what, even when I couldn’t be the greatest friend because of personal stuff. I brought up teaming up as a joke—then we started looking at places, first a small house in town across from a Starbucks, then we looked into mobile and truck options, but that isn’t the easiest to do in Southbury.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kash & Liv Coffee Creations LLC-Amanda Eng (@kashandlivcoffeecreationsllc)

As it turns out, they’d find a space in the strip mall at 220 Main Street South, and to boot, their friendship, combined with their individual skill sets were a match for turning the space around quickly. Meghan, who’s a designer, has her own Etsy Shop and appears at local craft fairs selling personalized mugs and shirts, created AM Coffee’s logo, their swag, and the interior of the shop. Andy, who is a co-owner of AM Coffee, did the construction and electrical work.

Eng obviously had the coffee part covered, but she’d have to teach her friend the trade.

“Now she’s full-on coffee!” Eng says. “I taught her. We all brought something different to the table and it worked out.”

“The espresso machine scared me because it looks intimidating,” Jefts says. “I wasn’t worried, but there’s a rhythm to it. You do it a few times and it becomes like second nature.”

The coffee program at AM Coffee is an extension of Eng’s Kash & Liv Coffee Creations. Every cup, that’s not tea or espresso, comes from beans roasted by Dhiman Raja of American Dream Coffee Co. in Newtown that Eng swears by and still uses at Uncle Matt’s, the Danbury Ice Arena, and her other gigs.

AM Coffee also adopted those same standards that Eng started with back in 2022—creative, fresh, scratch made syrups that are used in the shop’s beverages, often times carefully thought out to go alongside certain pastries.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kash & Liv Coffee Creations LLC-Amanda Eng (@kashandlivcoffeecreationsllc)

“I try to collaborate, like we get our bagels from Bagelman, which does a walnut cinnamon cream cheese, and that pairs well with our brown sugar cinnamon latte,” Eng says. “We do the same at Uncle Matt’s with what he bakes and when there’s a croissant special.”

There’s a pretty clear local spin at AM Coffee, so let’s spell the rest out for you.

Bagels are delivered fresh daily from Bagelman, the pastry is of course from Uncle Matt’s, there’s grab ‘n go milk from Guardians Farm in Southbury, and the espresso comes from Tommy Signorile of Euro Coffee in Mahopac who also was responsible for ordering their machines, and he services the equipment, too.

Although AM Coffee & Co. is super new, it’s gotten a positive response from the community. Both Meghan and Amanda don’t only hope for that to continue, they’re hoping to grow, along with wanting to create a coffee shop for everyone, including moms.

“We’d love to grow,” Eng says. “I’m hopeful for mobile (truck/trailer), but there’s a lot more to going about that. We do think it’s possible. Even just me, in two years, I didn’t think this was possible. Her kids are in elementary school here, mine are in preschool here. We have ties to this community and our goal was to create a space like this.”

“We want it to be a safe space for moms, too,” Jefts says. “If your kid is acting up, spills something, whatever, we get it. We just want it to be comfortable for everyone.”

220 Main Street South, Southbury
amcoffeeandco.com