by Samantha Husted

At Dyad Coffee, a neighborhood espresso bar, owner Morgan Eynard and her partner Jon Langford invite you to “Have a Day.”

Not necessarily a good day, nor a bad one. “Have a Day” is the duo’s invitation to show up as you are and to drink delicious and often delightfully weird, espresso-based drinks like Dyad’s lemon loaf latte or its infamous pickle espresso soda made with Molly Poe’s Party Pickle Juice, guaranteed to cure even the worst hangover.

“It’s like a cure-all,” Eynard says of Dyad’s pickle espresso soda. “If you’re hungover or if you’re dehydrated or whatever may ail you — it’s kind of like the perfect little drink.”

The slogan, like Dyad Coffee, was born during the pandemic — a time when having “a day” looked a lot different than it does currently, though the phrase still applies. “It was one of those things where it was like, you don’t have to have the best day, you just have to show up and have a day,” Eynard explains. “It just worked really well for how chaotic and messy and just in disarray life was at that time.”

Over the years, the espresso bar has built a community of coffee-loving followers. With Eynard’s keen palate and often delightfully odd flavor combinations, Dyad has brought new and inventive tastes to Charlotte’s coffee scene.

“Coffee is a very palatable and parable flavor,” Eynard says. “I feel like that helps me wander with my weird ideas.”

Since its inception, Eynard and Langford have also experienced their fair share of “days” — highs and lows that illustrate the difficulties of navigating a microbusiness. From Dyad’s thoughtful start in a cozy corner of a furniture store to the duo’s attempt at a brick-and-mortar, to the coffee shop’s future residency in a new Charlotte restaurant (announcement coming soon), Eynard has had to maneuver small business ownership in the Queen City — a decidedly difficult feat.

The beginning

Eynard is no stranger to the service industry. In fact, she’s been a part of it since she was 15. It’s not something she does out of necessity, but out of passion. After the craft cocktail boom in the mid 2010s piqued her interest, she moved to Austin, Texas and found work in a cafe that served coffee, culinary-driven cuisine, and good wine.

“That’s what really propelled me into realizing that I genuinely loved the service industry,” Eynard says. “Not just because I had to be in it, but because I really wanted to be in it.”

Initially, Eynard was drawn to the intricate, witchy elements of craft cocktails. For her, it was almost like making a potion; the precise amount of distinctive ingredients could come together to create something magical. “I think what was calling me was I liked the tinctures and I liked the almost spell bounding of drinks,” Eynard says.

But coffee has always been her true passion.

“Coffee has always been at the forefront of everything,” Eynard says. “Even when I was little, I always think about my grandparents after dinner, smelling the coffee and the conversations we had about coffee.”

When Eynard realized that coffee, like cocktails, could have a craft element, it shifted her medium from liquor to espresso. “Once I found my love for professional coffee and making coffee, I kind of started to fall out of love with cocktail service,” Eynard says.

Dyad Coffee is born

Dyad Coffee, like many great ventures, was born from a pivotal moment and creative necessity. When the pandemic hit in 2020, Eynard lost her job and found herself at a turning point.

“I  was just at a super crazy crossroad of just being heartbroken and super confused of what was happening with our world,” Eynard says. “Having all of my immediate family back in Charlotte, everyone kind of just started poking at me and being like, ‘You always talked about opening some sort of coffee shop or creating a business. Maybe this is the universe forcing you into expanding your roots and creating your identity.'”

Eynard moved back to Charlotte from Austin and moved forward with her idea. She launched the first iteration of Dyad Coffee (which she refers to as “Dyad Volume One”) in Nave — a now-closed furniture store on Rozzelles Ferry Road owned by a mother-daughter duo and Eynard’s close family friends.

“We wouldn’t be what we are without that space and that opportunity,” Eynard says. “We’re forever grateful to be able to kind of have that chapter and that foundation for what Dyad was.”

Together Eynard and her partner Langford began running Dyad Coffee. Eynard is sort of like the headchef, while Langford is her loving sous. “Jon likes to joke that when we’re in the kitchen, he’s my sous chef,” Eynard says. “I always say that a chef is only as strong as their sous. Truly, I would not be able to have the capacity or the space for expression if it wasn’t for him.”

At Nave, the couple began to build a community. Customers would drive upward of 30 minutes for tasty tonics like Dyad’s Peachy Queen, made with sweet peach, a tangy basil shrub, sharp espresso, and bubbly tonic. “It was shocking to experience someone drive 20 to 30 minutes to come get our coffee multiple times a week,” Eynard says.

The realities of microbusiness ownership

When the opportunity came for a brick-and-mortar store front on North Davidson Street, Eynard and Langford jumped at it. For the couple, it felt like a dream come true.

Using the crowd sourcing website GoFundMe.com, the duo was able to raise enough funds to secure and outfit the space. But according to Eynard, something felt inexplicably wrong. After contacting the City of Charlotte, she was told that the building they had rented was for residential use only — it was not permitted for a business to operate out of.

“It was super hurtful,” Eynard says. “That’s where we literally lost the money that we raised because we put it all into a building that we legally couldn’t run out of.”

For Eynard, not only was this devastating, it also illuminated the difficulties of owning a microbusiness. With no financial backing other than the community support she had built along the way, her business was vulnerable.

“It’s tough being a microbusiness with very small pockets because you don’t really have the expendable income to pay for these services that keep you safe to avoid the scenario that we were specifically in,” Eynard says.

With the small amount of money left from the GoFundMe, Eynard and Langford got to work building a coffee cart. It was their way of giving back. “We went through the array of emotions,” Eynard says. “That’s when we were like, ‘We have to do something. We have to show up. People showed up for us.’ So we built this little coffee cart that folds up into our car.”

Since then, Dyad has been operating out of the cart, popping up at local bars like Substrate here and there to serve its flavor-forward espresso-based drinks. While the cart has been a conduit for community, Eynard says she’s ready for a more intentional space.

“We’re again so grateful for that era of us because we were able to serve more people and we got to meet a lot of really cool community folks and also just small business people through that way of service,” Eynard says.

The future of Dyad Coffee

When it comes to the future, Eynard was understandably tight lipped — but she is excited. She says that Dyad Coffee will soon open inside of a new restaurant coming to Charlotte.

“The idea is to serve coffee during the day. It’ll be Dyad during the day and then a fantastic restaurant in the evenings.”

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