Pinup Coffee Takes Off with Standalone Cafe in Virginia Beach – Charm

Inside the new Pinup Coffee shop in Sherwood Lakes, Virginia Beach, Virginia. All images courtesy of Pinup Coffee Co.

Virginia Beach, Virginia-based coffee roaster Pinup Coffee Co. recently landed its biggest project to date with the opening of its first standalone cafe, including a full kitchen.

With approximately 2,500 square feet of interior space plus a large covered patio overlooking a lake, the new cafe sits within the Traditions at Sherwood Lakes development between the Red Mill and Pungo areas, not far from the home of Pinup founders Stephanie and Bryce Wein.

“We always knew we wanted to open one more cafe in Virginia Beach, but we weren’t actively searching for this particular location,” Stephanie Wein recently told DCN. “We actually discovered the building during an ordinary drive home after work and something about it immediately felt right.”

The cafe marks a major growth step for the locally focused company, which the Weins launched in June 2021 while both were still on active duty in the Navy. Now Navy veterans, the couple opened a new production roastery in 2022 and Pinup’s first cafe inside the Back Bay Farmhouse in 2024.

Stephanie Wein described the new shop as a “blank canvas” prior to the buildout. “Building from the ground up gave us opportunities we had never had before, but it also introduced challenges we hadn’t experienced with our first cafe,” Wein said, noting that they worked closely with an architect and contractors to place every plumbing line, floor drain, electrical circuit and water filtration system “before the concrete was poured.”

The finished cafe extends the Pinup brand’s themes through brushed metal finishes, polished concrete, a custom World War II pinup art collage wall and a large schematic wall nodding to both aviation and coffee equipment engineering. Custom tables from Virginia Beach’s Benevolent Design Co. were built using reclaimed wood salvaged from an 1840s barn.

Some of the cafe’s more distinctive touches came from friends chipping in after hours, working with the Weins to build live-edge shelving, accent walls and several custom fixtures. That work, Wein said, “allowed us to create details that felt uniquely Pinup instead of settling for off-the-shelf solutions.”

The custom Sherwood bar is equipped with a La Marzocco Linea PB 3-group espresso machine, Mahlkönig E65, E80 and EK43 grinders, pourover equipment, a Bunn batch brewer and manual matcha sets. Bryce, an SCA-certified espresso machine technician who also helps maintain equipment for wholesale customers, led the installation.

Edited in Tezza with: Brightness, Shadows, & Wildflower

The new food program, meanwhile, is the clearest departure from the company’s original shop. Pinup worked with chef Megan Powers of Silver Fox Food Truck — formerly based in Virginia Beach and now based in Long Island, New York — to design the kitchen layout, select equipment and shape a tight menu of fewer than 10 scratch-made items. The menu rotates seasonally.

Examples from the current menu include the Signature Pinup Sando (ciabatta with bacon, blue cheese crumbles, tarragon vinaigrette-dressed greens and a sunny-side-up egg), the Caprese Avocado Toast and the Candied Bacon Pimento BLT. Pastries and breads come from fellow Virginia Beach small business Top Knot Artisan Bakery.

With both cafes and the roastery now in flight, Wein said the company is not necessarily looking to expand anytime soon, although the future of the Farmhouse cafe could depend on what happens with a proposed redevelopment of the Back Bay Brewing Farmhouse property.

“Right now, we truly love where we are,” Wein said. “Between our wholesale roasting program and our two cafes, each with its own distinct vibe, we feel like we’ve built the kind of local footprint Pinup Coffee Co. was originally built for.”