Back to the Silver Sycamore

Look what they’ve added now: a coffee house!

    The Silver Sycamore Tea Room in Pasadena, TX has long been a favorite place of mine. Lately, however, I never seem to get out that way until something amazing gets added - and this certainly qualifies!

Beautifully rustic interior

It’s turning into quite a village: a Tea Room, Event Center, B&B rooms and cottages, outdoor wedding gazebo, massage therapy, floral shop, a very unique boutique, and now a coffee house! I am SO there!
I went early hoping to have the place to myself for a while. The barista, a geophysics student named Chase, took it in stride as I poked around everywhere snapping pictures.  He was a sharp kid, an interesting conversationalist, and can he ever produce a glorious caramel latte! (The prime-time barista, Ben Ashton, makes an art form of foam.)

Finally I settled in with the latte and a spinach/garlic Danish. What a delightful, flakey piece of heaven that was! I also got two cupcakes, one labeled strawberry cheesecake and one red velvet to go. Then my curiosity got the best of me and I tasted them. And ate them all gone. Sigh.

  While the red velvet featured an exquisitely delicate cream cheese frosting sparkled with red sugar, the strawberry cupcake was the main surprise. There were serious strawberries in there, folks! And I’m not talking about a dollop of preserves. Real, live strawberries! Chase says the pastries are delivered fresh each morning by Sweet LaLa’s Cupcake Company. So at the time of my sampling, they were very, very fresh! To die for. (Which could very well happen. I should never have gone there so hungry!)

I should mention that a variety of teas are also on the menu, and that they sell coffee beans. I left with a very aromatic bag of Amaya’s Santa Rosa roast.

  The Sycamore Grounds Coffee House is across the street from the main Silver Sycamore compound. It’s another in a series of 1930’s era homes that Jackie and Gary Spigener have bought and refurbished into a strip of home style businesses. “We love the quaintness of the old houses and what you can find, the little hidden treasures in each one of them,” says Jackie. “I wouldn’t even think about doing it all new.”

Jackie Spigener

In every house the Spigeners have rehabbed, they take care to utilize everything possible from the existing house to keep an organic feel. “We reuse everything,” said Spigener. It should be noted here that the 1930’s represents a highpoint in the history of homebuilding. Top quality construction; solid wood throughout.  They will long outlive the age of plywood and drywall!

The Sycamore Grounds Coffee house is open from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.