Why Hurst's Newest Coffee Shop Is a City Project in a 1969 Donut Shop on Pipeline Road

A student's favorite drink at his first job isn't on the board. When the Star-Telegram profiled him in May, he was a culinary arts student. He made lattes and iced mochas at The Coffee Shop, 420 W. Pipeline Road, and the one he liked best was a butter pistachio latte from the "secret menu." "It's been very nice being in an environment of being on a job and talking to a lot of people," he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in May.

That latte comes out of a building that sat empty for years. You can drive by it without guessing that the City of Hurst owns the business. The Coffee Shop opened in April 2026. Nearly every piece of it came from something the old Pipeline Road left behind: the land, the money and the reason for building it. That explains why it exists in a part of town a chain was unlikely to choose. It also sits on the corridor where the city is now deciding what comes next.

The building came with the road

When Pipeline Road was widened, Hurst bought right-of-way along it. One of those properties was the run-down Val Oaks Shopping Center. Economic development director Chris Connolly said the city tore down Val Oaks, but the purchase also included a second parcel. That parcel held a donut shop built in 1969 and a family-owned restaurant, Olivos Tortilla Factory.

The donut shop closed in 2019. In December 2024 the city announced it would become a coffee shop. The building needed a lot of work. It had a flat roof, and water had "poured in," so workers removed asbestos and replaced rotted rafters. "It became a complete renovation down to the studs," Connolly said.

The way it was paid for is the most unusual part. The renovation cost about $175,000. The money came from rent paid by Val Oaks tenants before the city tore down the center, and Connolly said no tax dollars were used. His plan is to pay the city back from coffee sales. So the shopping center that made way for the wider road also paid for the business that took its place.

A survey asked for it

A city government doesn't usually run a café. Connolly explained why this one does:

"My job as economic development director is to try to fill empty buildings. In-fill is always a challenge with an older building."

A survey of Hurst residents found that many wanted a sit-down coffee shop in the older part of town, he said. Getting one there wasn't easy. "It is difficult to get a chain to come and put roots down, but we got this opportunity," he said.

Local groups did the build-out. Connolly took renovation bids from members of the Hurst-Euless-Bedford Chamber of Commerce. Volunteers and nonprofits pitched in too, including 6Stones. Hurst also teamed up with Olivos, the restaurant that came with the same parcel, and The Coffee Shop now sells its breakfast tacos.

Who's behind the counter

The city hired its own baristas, led by a barista supervisor. HEB ISD students get real-world experience working there. Connolly went to the district after a business owner told him about a successful partnership with special education students. He then met with Superintendent Joe Harrington and other administrators. "There was just an incredible amount of buy-in from the district and superintendent to make this happen," Connolly said.

Students worked on the shop before it opened:

• Architecture students from the Gene A. Buinger Career and Technical Education Academy helped design the space.
• Architectural and interior design students and welding students also contributed, according to the city.
• Culinary arts students worked the espresso machine once the shop opened.
• Students in MARC, short for Moving in to Adult Roles and Communities, spend part of their mornings at the shop. MARC is the district's program for students who have graduated from high school but still have transition plans.

MARC teacher Jessica Jax said her students practice greeting customers, washing dishes, making coffee drinks and stocking the pastry cases. She pointed to one part of the arrangement in particular: "The exciting thing is that they (Hurst) want to hire our students, which was the missing link for us." A MARC student said meeting customers is one of his favorite parts. He said he has talked with his parents about working at The Coffee Shop once he finishes the program.

Barista supervisor Sarah Guyote grew up in Hurst and graduated from L.D. Bell. She saw the job posting on Facebook after years in the service industry and the corporate world. She called the city and school district partnership "brilliant." In May, a culinary arts student said, "I'd like to own my own restaurant."

How it's doing so far

The city's first customer was City Manager Clay Caruthers. The shop also served volunteers during the city's litter-cleanup weekend. That cleanup was the April 11 Spring Clean-Up Day, which met in the shop's parking lot. The city's invitation called the area "this prime area of Hurst." Guyote said the line during the soft opening stretched out the door. She said the shop already had regulars, and church groups and business owners were holding meetings there.

The city's economic update dated August 12, 2026, put numbers on it. Since opening in April, The Coffee Shop had welcomed more than 10,000 visitors and served more than 4,000 drinks. The same update shows Handel's Homemade Ice Cream on Precinct Line Road drawing more than 10,000 visits in its first two months after opening in May. Both openings pulled crowds right away. Only one of them was a business the city had to build itself.

Hours and what to order

The lobby and drive-thru keep the same hours. If you go by older city announcements that listed 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day, note that weekend hours are now different.

The menu has espresso drinks, drip coffee, cold brew, tea, matcha, chai, hot chocolate and lemonade. The bakery case holds muffins, croissants, kolaches and danishes, plus gluten-free options. The Olivos breakfast tacos are the most local thing you can order there. There's parking out front, and you'll know the building by its neon sign.

The rest of Pipeline Road is still being decided

The shop exists because Pipeline Road has been rebuilt one section at a time for close to a decade. That work isn't done.

City minutes call Phase 4 the final phase. It covers water, sewer, drainage, paving and a bridge, with a contract term of 600 calendar days. The council gave the contract to SYB Construction of Venus, Texas. The work includes new street lighting and tearing down and rebuilding the bridge. The Fort Worth Report said in May that the job would take close to two years. Public works director Robert Sauceda said most of that time goes to the bridge. "The contractor has to be working with traffic, with businesses, and that existing gas line, so we have to be very careful," he said. In the city and news sources reviewed for this post, we found no announced start date, lane closures or detours for Phase 4.

The bigger question is what gets built along the road, and that's still open. On August 13, Hurst held a drop-in open house at Hurst Public Library, 901 Precinct Line Road, for the Pipeline Corridor Land Use Update. The city's planning consultants, Catalyst Commercial and Dunaway, ran it. The city described the effort as a review of land use, development and investment opportunities along the corridor. It said public input will "directly inform" the update's recommendations. We found no published recommendations or schedule from that process yet. For now, a renovated 1969 donut shop with a drive-thru is the most finished example of the corridor's next chapter.

If you own a home or business near Pipeline Road, all of this affects you: the shop's opening, Phase 4 and whatever the land-use update recommends. Clint Rose and the Rose Group Realty team have spent years renovating older buildings and tracking how projects like these show up in what nearby homes sell for. To talk through what the Pipeline Road plans could mean for your property, Schedule Free Consultation.