Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea opened Tuesday on West Cross Street in Ypsilanti and is already seeing a steady stream of customers, owner Lisa Bee said.
"It's great," Bee said. "We have a lot of people coming in and they're enjoying the space. We love being here in Ypsilanti."
Bee said the crowd is a mixture of older customers as well as students from Eastern Michigan University, which is directly across the street from the business.
Wei and Lisa Bee signed a lease last November to open in the 1,300-square-foot building at 735 W. Cross St.
Lisa Bee has hired about 15 people to staff the Ypsilanti location and the shop underwent renovations. It seats between 30 and 40 patrons. The space features one large communal table and smaller ones as well.
Sweetwaters was founded in 1993 by the Bees, who have three locations in Ann Arbor: one on East Washington Street downtown, one in Kerrytown and one on Plymouth Road.
The menu offerings are largely the same as the other locations and feature BakeBar desserts, which are made by Sweetwaters.
The recently renovated building at 729-735 W. Cross St., already is home to two, first-floor retail tenants — a Subway sandwich shop and the Ypsilanti T-shirt Co. shop.
This stretch of Cross Street will see the opening of two restaurants in the span of two months. Insomnia Cookies, is slated to open sometime in April.
Katrease Stafford covers Ypsilanti for AnnArbor.com.Reach her at katreasestafford@annarbor.com or 734-623-2548 and follow her on twitter.