Ask Drago Tomianovic for a cup of coffee at Black Crown Collective and he’ll point you to a large pour-over menu and walk you through some of your options.
A light-filled coffee shop with exposed brick is the opposite of what you might expect to find in the middle of the Capitol complex, but that describes Tomianovic’s cafe, which opened in late January. Music plays in the background as patrons sit at the bar, watching him and his staff coax out a range of complex flavors, pouring the water by hand.
Led by Tomianovic and his business partner and co-founder Sam Deur, it’s an expansion of Black Crown’s coffee cart in the Cannon Building basement, which launched last year. The company started as a series of pop-ups around D.C., but when the chance arose to submit a bid for the space in Cannon, they jumped at it.
“There are coffee shops everywhere, but to give this as an opportunity for people to learn about specialty coffee, kind of like the way I did a few years ago, I just think is … really cool and unique,” Deur said.
In total, Deur and Tomianovic have eight employees, including themselves, who rotate between the cart in the basement and the shop on the second floor of Cannon. Tomianovic, who works in the cafe every day, said the reception so far has been overwhelming: “We have a line up until we close.”
Offerings at Black Crown Collective run the gamut from regular espresso drinks and cold brew to high-end roasts, like one from Onyx Coffee Lab at $19 for an espresso or $20 for a pour-over. The specialty menu also tells customers about the drinks they are ordering, like the flavor profile and price transparency: how much Black Crown pays for the beans. (In the case of that most expensive option, it’s $317.47 per kilogram.)
Most customers are finding the cafe through word of mouth, Tomianovic said. Among them is Rob Perez, who makes social media content about life in the District for his more than 100,000 social media followers.
“I’m super passionate about coffee, so things like that are worth the wait,” he said.
Perez said he already followed Tomianovic and Black Crown on social media and decided to stop by on a day he wasn’t working. He said it’s now one of his favorite coffee shops in D.C.
“It’s not like it’s a random government building like the Department of the Interior, where no one knows what they do there — it’s the Capitol. … You can go in and get a great cup of coffee. Like, how ideal,” Perez said.
He pointed to another local content creator who had posted a video about the shop, framing it as a coffee spot you have to go through security for.
“I think that premise should be used to their advantage,” Perez said.
Running a coffee shop inside of a House office building has been a bit different from some of Deur and Tomianovic’s previous experiences.
“It’s definitely not typical procedure to get a job offer for a coffee shop and then have to get fingerprinted,” Deur said. “There’s more bureaucracy than you would expect to just be in a coffee shop.”
But that hasn’t deterred some of his regulars who don’t work on the Hill, Tomianovic said.
“We have a few people that come every other morning, and I know them by name now, and they get their black salt lattes or their pour-overs, and they’re just neighborhood folks,” Tomianovic said.
The cafe isn’t the only newcomer on the Capitol food scene. The House side revamped its dining last summer when former vendor Sodexo’s contract was up, with the Chief Administrative Officer announcing a list of new choices — like Jimmy John’s, Starbucks and local restaurant CHA Street Food — rather than a single mega-contractor.
The union representing nearly 200 House food service workers had initially led a boycott of several of the new options, calling on them to retain jobs and honor previously negotiated benefits. But it ended its boycott of Black Crown after reaching a labor peace agreement in September.
The interior of Black Crown has only a few seats, but Deur and Tomianovic point to a seating area next door that is set to expand. While not part of their shop, it could offer more space to sip.
“Hopefully, on our menu, we have something for everyone,” Deur said. “If you want something really, really sweet, great. We have syrups, and we can make you whatever you want. If you want to try a pour-over that was served in a competition that you’d never have the opportunity to have, that is something that we have an entire menu of.”
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