Coal Avenue brews hope for coffee shop

Dee Touchine and Bill Camarota opened Billy Dee's Coffee located at 6th and Coal in Gallup in November, 2005. Offering a signature mixed-coffee drink called the Sugar Daddy, the coffee shop also offers a selection of other drinks and food. [Photo by Daniel Zollinger/Independent]

By Pamela G. Dempsey
Staff Writer

GALLUP — A new location has given a familiar coffee shop a new lease on, well, coffee.

Billy Dee's Coffee Experience opened up in November on the corner of Coal Ave. and Sixth St. a few years after it shut down its previous location as a kiosk in the mall.

And owners Bill Camarota and Delene Touchine have big plans for their second start.

"I've always enjoyed coffee," Camarota said, "I've dug it ... I know how to cook it."

The couple roasts coffee beans on site, grinds them into pounds for customers to buy, and offers sandwiches and soup, in addition to other coffee treats including sugar-free espresso, mocha, and energy drinks.

"We're a coffee shop first," Camarota said. "We offer food, but (that's not to take away) from the coffee."

Touchine said the shop buys whole beans from Kenya, Mexico, and South America. They also buy free-trade coffee and shade-grown coffee which are coffee beans grown in a natural environment underneath the shade of banana trees.

The clientele, Touchine said, is different than that of the mall.

"We didn't have a big pool to fish out of," she said.

Their new store offers customers more items and offers its owners more customers.

The couple hopes to get more repeat business from the community that works in the area and both of them have big plans for this small shop.

"It's going to be more than a coffee shop to hang out in," Touchine said.

The couple plans to bring in wireless Internet and a few years down the road, incorporate Native American cultural tours and casino tours.

But in the meantime, Camarota wants to start a no-money poker night "just for fun."

Billy Dee's will also participate in this weekend's Arts Crawl.

Billy Dee's Coffee Experience is open Monday through Saturday from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. It's located on the corner of Coal Ave. and Sixth St.. For more information, call (505) 409-5054 and (505) 409-5026.