Social distancing at Social Coffee Bar
By MANDY SHELTON | Photos contributed
Contrary to popular belief, the musical paraphernalia decorating the walls of Social Coffee Bar is not leftover inventory from Renaissance Records, the beloved Killeen institution that shuttered in 2011.
“A lot of people think that’s where I got everything,” said Raymond Assed, former owner of Renaissance Records and current owner of Social Coffee Bar. While the Renaissance storefront sign does decorate the balcony of SCB, the rest of the décor took a long, strange trip involving several detours through Killeen’s musical past.
Raymond purchased Renaissance Records in 1999 from the original owner, David Spriggs, who started the business in 1976. The local, independent source for new and used tunes cycled through records, tapes, and CDs before music’s current form, digital, sounded the swansong for record stores. Raymond moved locations twice before landing on Elms Road and liquidating inventory. He admits that many cassette tapes, lacking the cache of vintage vinyl, met an undignified death at the bottom of a dumpster.
Besides the final resting place of Renaissance Records, the Assed family owns multiple properties at the intersection of Elms Road and Fort Hood Street, a popular locale for night clubs. Over the years, stacks of wax from the club scene accumulated in a back room of one of the buildings. “They would just take all the old vinyl records and put them in that storage,” Raymond said. “We found all the vinyl, and we’re like ‘OK, we’ve got to use this vinyl to decorate.’”
A trip to a bar and restaurant expo in Las Vegas produced more ideas, like incorporating cassette tapes. Once overburdened with the ubiquitous plastic cartridges, Raymond found himself sourcing tapes from eBay.
Social Coffee Bar opened in December 2019. Raymond credits longtime employee Tammy Charnock with bringing the concept to the table. “She started telling me about these places in Austin,” Raymond said. “Coffee bars: they sold coffee and beer. And I fell in love right away.”
Tammy has worked for the Assed family for the past 15 years. She began behind the bar at Tatu, working her way up to head bartender, then running clubs like Cody’s and Starlite Station. “And then we started this,” Tammy said of the enterprise that now demands her time all day, every day. “It’s a lot of work. A lot of fun, but a lot of work.”
Three months after opening, the business was hit by a double-whammy: one figurative and one literal. On March 17, a vehicle ran into the building, leaving few injuries but plenty to clean up. Social Coffee Bar had already planned to limit services during the COVID-19 pandemic; on March 19, an executive order shut down all bars and restaurants statewide.
While everyone else was stuck at home with their sourdough starters, Social Coffee Bar installed an in-house café-style bakery, SDE. “Sweets del Encanto,” explained manager Carmen Orta. “I’m Puerto Rican, so that’s where the name comes from.” A former manager at Mangos, Orta has also been running her home baking company for a decade and recently opened Cakelandia across the street on Elms.
Along with the morning pastries to pair with coffee, Carmen brought ideas for paninis, nachos, and beer cheese. “We kept throwing around ideas until we got our menu,” said Raymond, whose musical influence is visible on the menu, with chips and salsa listed under the heading “Anything for Selenas,” a celebrated line from the 1997 biopic about the Tejano music superstar.
While the musical theme encompasses everyone from Elvis to 2Pac, the era of emphasis is echoed in the checkered floors. “I grew up in the ’80s, love the ’80s,” Raymond said. “The ’80s were probably the most important time in music.” Though such a bodacious statement might inspire a generational battle of the bands, Raymond holds strong to his beliefs and has good reason to incorporate them into Social Coffee Bar.
“To me, and it just seemed like that was a theme that is still bringing together the older generation and the new generation,” he said. “The new generation, they love the ’80s stuff, they’re starting to pick up on it, so I figured that’s a good starting point. It’s just my opinion that ’80s music has reached more people than any other era of music.” In naming the coffee bar Social, he is hoping the space he has created will do the same for Killeen.
If You Go
3300 S. Fort Hood St., Suite A, Killeen
A private karaoke room is available for booking. Call 254-415-7656 or contact @socialcoffeebarkilleen on Facebook.
Hours: Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Friday, 7 a.m. to 2 a.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 2 a.m.; Sunday, noon to 6 p.m.
Tuesday is trivia night, Thursday is comedy night, and Saturday is live music night.
Sunday, according to owner Raymond Assed, is for taking it easy.
