Armstrong Inn, Savannah

This week as we continue our series on Savannah’s East Broad Street, we’ll hear from a couple who opened a Bed and Breakfast on East Broad and young entrepreneurs who chose to locate their new business in this historic corridor within the city. This project is a collaboration with two of Dr. Susan Falls' anthropology classes at Savannah College of Art and Design.

SCAD anthropology students, Cory Hott and Joanna Albert, interviewed Monique Armstrong. She’s originally from Canada and has also lived in France as well as New York City before opening a bed-and-breakfast in Savannah with her husband. She says she’s learned a lot since moving here in 2000.

"Learning business, learning to go through a new life and try to not let the fear get to you," she said. "That would block you (from) seeing the beauty of the whole thing."

Another pair of SCAD students spoke with Armstrong’s husband, William. He says they’ve seen many homes along East Broad Street renovated over the years. But he says residents of wealthier blocks warned the couple about moving to the area.

"Funny part about it, we had no problems with the people who lived here," he said. "But it was funny because the people who lived on the other side of Price Street thought this was a very dangerous neighborhood and they wouldn’t come here. But we were accepted very well in this neighborhood."

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Students Rylie Healy and Leanna Hatcher visited PERC Coffee Roasters and spoke to Spencer Perez, the company’s director of quality assessment. They learned there’s a lot that goes into a good cup of coffee.

"For one, having the right water temperature is really important," he said. "Actually, even before that, the quality of the water is really important. So, looking at like hardness, mineral content, things like that."

Perez says he and owner Philip Brown aim to get the best quality out of the roasting process as well, "A large part of my job is tasting the coffee, figuring out why it tastes the way it does. And then meeting with Philip daily to talk about what I recommend he tweaks in the roast to bring out or to reduce certain characteristics I’m tasting in the coffee."

Being a small business focused on quality makes PERC especially vulnerable to the volatile coffee market. Perez says bigger roasters stockpile coffee in case prices go up. But that means that they have coffee sitting around that may be six months, a year, two years old. And coffee does stale. Like it’s a green, it’s a crop. So we absolutely won’t do that; we’re committed to freshness and quality. So we’re really, really susceptible to changes in the market. That’s scary. All that coffee tasting can lead to some problems though.

"Free coffee is great," Perez said. "It’s also one of the downsides. I think it’s unique to work in an industry where everybody is high all day long. We’re just all completely jacked up on coffee, so tensions run high, emotions run high, a lot of yelling."

That’s Spencer Perez of PERC Coffee Roasters speaking with SCAD anthropology students. Click here to access the SCAD site where all of the students projects are housed. There you will find write-ups, audio, photography and video about these and other stories from East Broad.

Contributors: Emily Jones, Sarah McCammon, J. Cindy Hill, SCAD students

Tags: armstrong inn, perc coffee, east broad, SCAD, GPB Savannah, Savannah