Two Decades of Heart and Hospitality at Black & Brew

PHOTOS BY JORDAN RANDALL

With delightfully tantalizing descriptions, the special holiday offerings fill chalkboards on walls enticing customers at Lakeland’s Black & Brew Coffee House and Bistro–perfectly blended cups of warm or chilled cheer, with tasty sandwiches and pastries to complement the season’s shopping runs.

Black & Brew is Lakeland’s own cup of comfort—a successful local endeavor that will celebrate 20 years in 2026, powered by the heart of couple Chris and Charity McArthur. What began as an entrepreneurial outlet has become one of the area’s most charming and beloved must-stop-ins.

“Your anytime place” isn’t just the company’s motto, but also the unmistakable vibe.

The support of the Lakeland community has been clear. What was born in Chris McArthur’s always-percolating business mind is about to include a fourth location. The flagship café opened in downtown Lakeland overlooking Munn Park in 2006. The always bustling respite outside the Lakeland Library on Lake Morton followed in 2018 and the next edition, on South Florida Ave. opened in 2022 offering a large seating area but also featuring an “express lane” to quickly grab your espresso favorites and other classics.

Right before the New Year arrives, Black & Brew will be opening another location—perhaps their boldest coffee house contribution yet—a 2,600-square foot café inside the Carol Jenkins Barnett Pavilion for Women and Children at Lakeland Regional Health. In so many ways it’s a perfect location that will not only provide familiar hospitality and flavors to patients and their families during hospital stays, but should be embraced by the medical professionals who turn in long days to help and cure.

Perhaps fitting for a company that also proudly sells its own line of skillfully roasted coffee —Patriot Coffee—the business of Black & Brew doesn’t sit still.

“We figured if we ingrain this idea of hospitality into our team then everything else would be a natural thing in terms of what we want to accomplish and give our customers,’’ Chris McArthur said. “Our mission is very simple: we want to help create a kinder community.”

Owners Charity and Chris McArthur are shown in early December inside the space that by month’s end is expected to open as a Black & Brew location inside Carol Jenkins Barnett Pavilion for Women and Children at Lakeland Regional Health.

“I’ve always had that confidence in him that he’s going to succeed and I’m going to be there supporting him every step of the way, whatever it takes.”

— Charity McArthur on her husband, Chris

The McArthurs still alternate between shaking their heads in grateful disbelief at the now decades-long success of their ideas and smiling about how far the Mulberry High School sweethearts have come in their own careers and contributions they have made to the area they love.

Understanding where they started—including convincing financial backers that their local-first idea could succeed against well known, yet sometimes impersonal national chains—helps you appreciate how far they have come as a couple and as a company.

The recurring theme through the chapters of their story is “people and community.”

A large part of the company’s success has been hiring not just the right people, but “good” people. And Black & Brew’s Chief Operating Officer Amanda Rivera, 38, may be the ultimate example. The Lakeland High graduate actually started at the company as college student who simply needed a job—first working as a barista in the downtown location before steadily earning promotions, in part because of her uncommon work ethic and business acumen.

It’s the kind of opportunity the McArthurs have always presented for their employees and for Rivera, the formal business degree she once pursued has essentially been enhanced with a real-world post-graduate tassel.

“I knew from the get-go they [Chris and Charity] were going to be people I could count on not only as employers but in life as well,’’ Rivera said. “They’ve always held themselves with such integrity. They are themselves a very strong powerhouse couple, and I’ve always been so admiring of them for everything they’ve been able to accomplish in their entrepreneurship and their stewardship of the community as well.”

She said from the get go she resonated with the fact that the McArthurs were keen on building spaces people could call their home away from home, partially because the downtown location became a second home to her.

For Rivera, her work helping bring the new location at the hospital to life may feel a bit like an unforeseen journey of fate. She is part of a team opening a café in the very place she received treatment for metastatic thyroid cancer only a few years ago.

Black & Brew’s owners, Charity (far left) and Chris McArthur (far right) have long relied on the loving support of actual family, like Charity’s father, Bill Hartmann, (third from right) and work family, like COO Amanda Rivera, as they have solidified their place as a Lakeland favorite.

out was my job,’’ Rivera said, the tenor of her voice conceding the emotion she still feels. “I consider it a blessing that while doctors were giving me guidance on how to approach my employers with paperwork, I didn’t need it because I knew Chris and Charity would look after me and make sure I had everything I needed. …and would give me the time I needed to heal and to recover.

“So, I do have a lot of personal connection having been in the hospital as a patient myself. Having to go into the space every day where you’re having to consider and reconcile a lot of things, is another reason why I’m excited for this hospital café. I really do feel like we can offer people the chance to feel like they have a bit of comfort in a time when they might need some extra comfort.”

That outlook and personal connection speaks to the significance of Black & Brew’s new endeavor. And it’s genuinely the way the company has always striven to operate.

“I feel like it’s going to make you feel you are enveloped in warmth, almost like drinking a cup of coffee with cinnamon—just warmth and gentleness,’’ Rivera said with a genuine smile.

“knew from the get-go they [Chris and Charity] were going to be people I could count on not only as employers but in life as well,”

Rivera commends Chris and Charity for being so intentional about attempting to create spaces where people can feel connected, to what the business offers, as well as to each other.

The appreciation goes both ways.

“She’s an incredible success story and has been a tremendous asset for us,’’ Chris says of Rivera. “I don’t know that Black & Brew would be here—in the way that it is today—without her.’’

That connection with one another and with community members has helped differentiate Black & Brew.

For example, Ms. Nancy, as she is known, began frequenting the library cafe multiple times a week to order her “small medium roast with cream and sugar,” and as many of the customers do, she became friends with the McArthurs.

Not only does she consider her nearly daily visits to Black & Brew “coffee and aromatherapy’’ she is grateful for the personal connection she has made. During a particularly tough time in her life, the McArthurs were the first to offer help—even inviting her to join their family for Thanksgiving dinner at their home.

“I appreciate the fact they not only have such great integrity, but also are such kind people,’’ said Ms. Nancy, who rides her bike to the cafe from her Dixieland-area apartment. “I know they do things for employees and for different charities in Lakeland to help others, and I think that’s amazing to incorporate that.”

It’s the kind of connection that shows the “success” of Black & Brew goes far beyond its profitability and expansion to new locations. In many ways the business is measured more by the effect it has had on people and the strong pillar it continues to be in the community.

“I’ve always had that confidence in him that he’s going to succeed and I’m going to be there supporting him every step of the way, whatever it takes,’’ Charity said, looking at her husband of 21 years with a smile.

Not only has their success been ample, but it has often come in unexpected ways with unanticipated timelines. And great challenges, including surviving a pandemic. The opportunity for the McArthurs’ newest café was first presented to them—as opposed to coming from them. And that is unquestionably a real-world result of the “can-do” spirit they have now shown for decades to the community they care so much about.

It’s said, a grateful heart attracts blessings. And so it has been for the McArthur family and the community they serve. One delicious cup at a time.

“I think what I’ve taken away from all this is having the ability to pivot and pursue things with everything you’ve got until the door gets pushed shut—and then saying, ‘Okay, I’m not going to let this crush me. What’s next?’’’ Chris said.

“It’s hard in the moment, but I think as I’ve gotten older and God has provided me with new direction, opportunity or purpose, the confidence has increased.

“I can say, honestly, I don’t approach anything with the idea we will fail because failure is so black and white. Just because something doesn’t align with my initial vision doesn’t mean it’s a failure.

“We have the ability to take those detours and create something beautiful out of it.”

Your Anytime Place

Two Decades of Heart and Hospitality at Black & Brew

Sincerely, Mark.