Taste & See Coffee

Albertville, Alabama did not have a dedicated coffeehouse on its downtown square until Taste and See Coffee opened in 2024, filling a gap that longtime residents had noticed for years. The shop sits at 400 East Main Street, close enough to the courthouse and the town’s older storefronts that it has quickly become a natural stop for anyone spending a morning downtown.

The idea behind the shop was simple: build a room, not just a counter. The founders have described wanting more than a place to grab coffee and leave, aiming instead for deeper booths, power outlets at every seat, low background music, and rotating art from local artists on the walls. The result is a space clearly built for staying a while, whether that means working through email with a laptop or catching up with a neighbor over a slow cup of coffee.

The drink menu covers familiar ground with real attention to detail. Two roasts stay on rotation, one bright and one chocolatey, available brewed or as a pour over ground to order for guests who want a slower cup. Espresso drinks run the standard range, from a straightforward cappuccino with dense foam and a double shot to flavored lattes and iced lattes in two sizes. Matcha, made with ceremonial grade powder, and a rotating chai latte round out the non coffee options, alongside hot tea, hot chocolate, and sparkling tea for guests looking for something different.

Food leans toward scratch made bakery items rather than a full breakfast menu. Scones, biscuits, muffins, biscotti, and cookies come out of the kitchen daily, and the shop also offers a short savory lineup built around a pimento cheese sandwich and a Conecuh sausage dog, both nods to ingredients with deep roots in Alabama kitchens. A salad plate and a sandwich plate give guests a lunch option without turning the shop into a full restaurant.

The shop’s name comes from Psalm 34:8, taste and see that it is good, a small detail that reflects the intentional, unhurried pace the founders built into the space. That pace shows up in the hours too. The shop opens early, at 6:30 a.m. most weekdays, and closes by early afternoon on most days except Thursday, when it stays open into the evening. Saturday hours run shorter still, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the shop closes entirely on Sunday.

Free wifi, outlets at every seat, and a genuinely quiet study area have made the shop a popular spot for remote workers and students from nearby schools, while the slower pace and rotating local art keep it feeling more like a neighborhood living room than a chain coffee counter. Outdoor seating gives guests another option on milder days, particularly during the fall and spring months when Sand Mountain’s weather tends to cooperate.

For a downtown that had gone without a true coffeehouse for years, Taste and See Coffee has quickly become one of the more reliable gathering spots in Albertville, a place built around the idea that a good coffee shop is really about the room as much as the cup.

The shop’s opening was not without a bureaucratic detour. Getting the historic property on East Main Street rezoned from residential to retail use required navigating a legal challenge from neighbors before the city’s rezoning decision was upheld, a reminder that even a small downtown coffee shop can involve real hurdles before the first cup is ever poured. That the shop opened at all, in a building with real history behind it, gives the space a sense of permanence that a newer strip mall location would lack. Regulars now treat the shop as a fixture of the downtown square rather than a recent addition, a shift that happened faster than the founders likely expected when they first signed the lease.