The new seasons of Build-Outs is off to a mighty strong start. Let’s keep the good vibes going with a visit to Daysol Coffee Lab in Birmingham, Alabama, a city that’s shown up huge in our Build-Outs series over the last few years. This new flagship roasting space and retail shop is a sight to see, with an impressive scale and sense of mission. Let’s learn more.
The 2026 Build-outs of Coffee is presented by DONA, Pacific Barista Series, and La Marzocco.
As told to Sprudge by Bert Davis.
For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?
DAYSOL Coffee Lab is a Birmingham-based coffee roaster who opened our brand new flagship roastery and retail shop in downtown Birmingham in January of 2026. Roaster and owner Bert Davis started his coffee career in Denver, CO as an independent roaster and moved to Birmingham in 2019 and started Daysol. We also have a smaller retail shop in Hoover, AL just 15 minutes south of Birmingham.
Can you tell us a bit about the new space?
Our new space house several local Birmingham breweries over the past 15-20 years including Cahaba Brewing, Ghost Train Brewing, and Uproot Brewing. The space is 8,000 total square feet that includes our roastery and retail shop. It is an open concept space where customers can see up close the roasting process. We wanted to stay true to the brewery vibes so we kept the rustic warehouse aesthetic while adding our own flair and branding. We have three large roll up garage doors to give an open fell as well as tons of outdoor seating and an outdoor stage. In just the few months we’ve been open we have hosted a bluegrass band, DJ, singer songwriter night, and jazz trio. We are also open for events and have already hosted several successful events. The vibe is Americana, with many people being blown away by how cool the space is.
What’s your approach to coffee?
I started out roasting coffee in Denver so roasting is my true passion. I feel that having a solid roasting background is really the foundation for what we do. We have several blends that we rely on very heavily and focus on direct to farm relationships that create blends that compliment the characteristics of each origin. We also often have unique single origin coffees that we cycle through depending on what we find that we like and what to showcase. When it comes to drinks, we really enjoy creativity and use our entire team to come up with recipes.
Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?
We use a late model La Marzocco Linea Classic three-group, three Mahlkönig grinders, a FETCO drip brewer, a six head kegerator for cold brew and kombucha. Our roaster is a Diedrich IR12. We sample roast on a Ikawa Pro. We have two Linea Minis machines that we use for out test kitchen and coffee cart at events.
How is your project considering sustainability?
One of the things we focus heavily on at Daysol is working with what we have. Our location houses an urban where we grow as many herbs and ingredients as we can for our house-made syrups and even have our own beehives to source honey. With our garden, composting is very important so we compost as much as we can from our shop for our own garden as well as staff and customer gardens.
We have worked to develop our own chai recipe as well and we use the byproducts of that process to create the base for our golden milk latte (a turmeric and ginger based drink). Our focus on sustainability centers around minimizing waste and creating new an useful ways to utilize things that might normally just get thrown out.
What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?
We opened January 17th, 2026
Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?
Honestly for the buildout of our space we did 90% of the work ourselves. Having been a brewery already, we were able to utilize the majority of what was already here. The aesthetic work is what really makes the space special. We have turned one of our rooms into an art gallery. Created a syrup and test kitchen out of a corner nook that was being used to make pizza. Matthew Davis (our graphic and creative designer) headed up the project of making a beloved brewery space to feel the same but look like Daysol and not just the same as it always has. Then myself and employees grabbed our paint brushes and got to work. It has been fun to have customers and the previous breweries’ workers and owners come by and comment on how cool it looks. The same but different, which is exactly what we were going for!!
Thank you!
Thank you for considering us! You really have to see the place to truly appreciate it!!
The 2026 Build-outs of Coffee is presented by DONA, Pacific Barista Series, and La Marzocco.
