Red Cat Coffeehouse

Red Cat Coffeehouse has been part of Birmingham, Alabama’s coffee scene since 2008, when owners Mike and Aileen McElwain opened their first location with a simple guiding idea: coffee for everyone. Nearly two decades later, that motto still shows up on the shop’s signage and in the way the cafe is run, welcoming everyone from remote workers settling in for the morning to neighbors stopping by for a quick cup on the way to work. The McElwains have described the shop’s approach as a deliberate middle ground, serving specialty-grade coffee treated with care while staying accessible to people who are not deep into third-wave coffee culture.

The Pepper Place location, at 2901 2nd Avenue South, sits in one of Birmingham’s most walkable food and shopping districts, a former warehouse corridor that has become known for its Saturday market and cluster of independent restaurants. Red Cat roasts its coffee fresh daily in-house, and the shop pairs its espresso drinks with a full food menu built around breakfast and lunch rather than pastries alone. Beyond straight coffee, the menu also includes smoothies along with vegan and vegetarian options for customers looking for something beyond a standard breakfast sandwich.

Breakfast service runs from opening until 11 a.m. on weekdays and noon on Saturdays, with items like a breakfast burrito, priced at $11.50, a breakfast bowl, a breakfast sandwich, and avocado toast for $9.75. Lunch takes over from there, with wraps, paninis, and salads that can be ordered full or half size. A turkey club wrap for $12.75, a veggie wrap, and a chipotle chicken panini are among the regulars, and the Red Cat salad and a rotating seasonal salad, also $12.75, round out the lighter options.

Birmingham Breadworks, the Southside Birmingham bakery on 7th Avenue South, is a sister business under the same ownership and handles Red Cat’s coffee roasting, which is part of why the McElwain name shows up at both shops. It is a small but telling detail about how tightly connected some of Birmingham’s independent food businesses are, with one family-run operation feeding into another just a few blocks apart. Red Cat also sells its coffee wholesale to other businesses around Birmingham, extending the roastery’s reach well beyond its own three storefronts.

Red Cat operates two additional Birmingham locations beyond Pepper Place, one at Railroad Park and another inside UAB Highlands Hospital, each keeping its own hours. The Pepper Place shop is open Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and closed on Sundays, while the Railroad Park location keeps longer daily hours that include Sunday service. Having a cafe inside the hospital speaks to the same coffee for everyone idea the McElwains started with in 2008, putting a familiar cup within reach of staff, patients, and visiting families rather than keeping the brand confined to a single neighborhood storefront.

The Pepper Place space also includes a roughly 2,300 square foot event room available for private rentals, with fifteen-foot ceilings and room for close to a hundred guests. The industrial-chic room is booked out for weddings, rehearsal dinners, birthdays, and reunions, typically Monday through Saturday evenings, a detail that points to how the shop has grown from a simple coffee counter into a small hospitality business. Customers can also buy Red Cat gift cards or ask about job openings, since the shop keeps hiring as it grows across its three Birmingham locations.

For visitors exploring Pepper Place, Red Cat makes a natural stop before or after browsing the district’s shops, especially on Saturday mornings when the Market at Pepper Place draws crowds nearby. The combination of house-roasted coffee, a real breakfast and lunch menu, and a family ownership story that connects back to one of Birmingham’s best-known bakeries gives the shop a sense of place that a quick espresso counter alone would not.