Craft Kafe brews plans for Skyway Marina District

The locally grown Craft Kafe business, which has built a strong brand in St. Petersburg through its gluten-free baked goods, is expanding into the Skyway Marina District.

The new location, under construction in the Marina Village shopping plaza at 4725 34th St. South, represents the fourth site for the business. 

“We signed the lease three years ago, but the pandemic and contracting work issues slowed things down,” owner Teddy Skiadiotis said. “We were approached by one of our customers who happened to be the landlord of the plaza and knew we needed a place to store our production and packaging equipment.” 

Skiadiotis will use the back portion of the 6,000-square-foot space for production and food distribution to the existing stores, while he will convert the front of the storefront into a cafe. 

The interior construction of the empty shell space is nearly complete. Skiadiotis is working with a Tampa graffiti artist to create a mural on one side of the storefront. 

Skiadiotis is prioritizing bringing the production operations online before opening the cafe, which will debut by the end of the year or early 2024. He plans to hire 30 employees for the new location. 

Craft Kafe is known for providing gluten-free pastries, pizza and bread. The team stone mills organic rice to circumvent wheat flour in its recipes. The team also makes almond and chickpea-based flour and other alternatives to keep the cafe’s kitchens free of gluten. “Any oats, nuts, or any other ingredients we purchase are always certified gluten-free,” according to the company website.

Skiadiotis said he hopes to one day have his dough and products carried in supermarkets.

“The idea with the packaging equipment is to distribute items that easily translate out to stores and local chefs who can make gluten-free products,” Skiadiotis said. “Also, refrigeration is the main problem at our cafes so we can only produce a certain amount. This space will alleviate that stress.” 

Craft Kafe first debuted in 2014 at 6653 Central Ave. In 2018, the company opened a downtown storefront on the ground floor of the 200 Central tower that’s home to multiple large St. Pete firms, including global asset management firm ARK Invest and Dynasty Financial Partners.

Last year, Craft Kafe expanded to downtown Tampa with a location on West Kennedy Boulevard.

“We are capturing a new area in St. Pete. We are centrally located with good gateway access to the highway, which is great if we open cafes in places like Sarasota or Bradenton,” he said. 

Multiple investors and restauranteurs have approached Skiadiotis about future franchise opportunities. 

“People in cities like Orlando, Dallas, Detroit and Toronto [Canada] want to open our cafes, but they don’t know the entire process of everything we do. It would take six months to a year to educate them,” he said. “We are just continuing to grow organically.”