Coffee Talk: Member Spotlight on Nick & Bri Spinelli
By Ashley Daniels
When Nick and Bri Spinelli moved their family to Myrtle Beach from Arizona a few years ago, they were searching for ways to fill their cup, so to speak – and they were craving fresh-brewed coffee to fill their mugs, too.
So, the couple started their own coffee shop, Caspin Coffee, a name birthed from a blend of Bri’s maiden name, her married name, and her love of lions and their Biblical imagery.
“We started off doing the mobile thing,” says Bri. “It was really nice to get out during Covid and Nick and I obviously love coffee, but when we moved here, we realized there’s not a lot of coffee.”
Both Nick and Bri, a former labor and delivery nurse, have past lives working at the well-known West Coast drive-thru coffee franchise, Dutch Bros.
“Honestly, when we first started, we had a lot of things going on around the COVID time and neither of us had a job at that time,” she continues. “And so we just thought, why not in the meantime we start a coffee cart?”
Without any huge goals on the horizon ahead of their mobile coffee cart, Nic and Bri picked up momentum after going to the Myrtle Beach wedding convention, booked some weddings and events, and began rolling up to the farmer’s markets in Surfside Beach on Tuesdays and at The Market Common on Saturdays.
“We finally got to a point where we thought it would be really cool if we could open a shop,” she says.
The brick-and-mortar Caspin Coffee opened the first weekend in March 2022 on Highway 707 in the Salem Shops plaza near St. James High School. In addition to a menu of coffees brewed from house-roasted beans, flavored soda, and a few pastries, the coffee shop also offers a variety of pottery handcrafted by Rooted Beauty Pottery, owned by Becca Wengel, an art teacher at St. James Middle School, whom they met at the Surfside farmer’s market. Pottery classes are also available at the shop and the coffee cart is still available for hire at events.
Caspin is like a hotspot combo of coffee and creativity. It’s also been a blessing, the result of the couple’s supportive family and community during some challenging times in Caspin’s early days.
Only a few months after migrating to Myrtle Beach, the Spinellis found out their son, Ezra, had severe medical issues. This was before he even turned 1, which was also during Covid. Ezra, now 2, has had to have surgeries to correct hydrocephalus, a buildup of fluid in the brain; vocal cord paralysis, where he had to learn how to drink and swallow; and spina bifida, which Bri calls the “snowflake disorder” because it affects each person differently, depending on which nerves are involved. Today, thankfully, weekly trips to MUSC in Charleston have slowed down to monthly, even every three months.
“And we’re getting MRIs every six months now, which is spaced out so much more, but we still go to see someone in neurosurgery, physical therapy, and urology,” says Bri. “But everything is looking good and progressing … We haven’t had a procedure in over a year, and he’s doing amazing at PT. I mean, everyone loves the kid. He’s the sweetest little thing and he is very intelligent. We just went to his checkup a couple of months ago, and he’s testing three or four months ahead, cognitively.”
Nick, Bri, Ezra, and their 4-year-old daughter, Delila, recently joined Solid Rock at Market Common, following the footsteps of Bri’s parents, who also moved to Myrtle Beach, along with Bri’s two younger sisters. Bri’s older sister still lives in Arizona.
“When we were going back and forth to Charleston between procedures, we did a lot of online [church],” says Bri. “But as far as a place that we liked the sermons and the worship, we chose Solid Rock. And it’s nice because my parents go there. … and it’s hard starting over at places with Ezra. It scares people when you say stuff about his life, but they all know him at Solid Rock. They all love him. “He’s just like any other kid in there, and they all adore him.”
You can check out more info on Caspin Coffee at https://caspincoffee.com/ or @caspincoffee on Facebook and Instagram.
