A shared storefront from veteran-founded brands Nine Line Apparel and Black Rifle Coffee has quietly opened on St. Augustine’s bayfront, filling a storefront that sat empty after a longtime Mexican restaurant closed its doors. The soft opening at 14 Avenida Menendez brings patriotic apparel and a coffee bar under one roof, with a grand opening planned for next month timed to the kickoff of the city’s Nights of Lights celebration.
The new location, reported by St. Johns Citizen, takes over space previously occupied by Mayita, a Mexican restaurant and sister concept to Casa Maya, which has closed. The storefront sits along Avenida Menendez, the waterfront thoroughfare that runs parallel to the Matanzas River seawall and was originally known as Bay Street before being renamed for city founder Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, according to the UFHSA Governor's House Library. The building itself carries deeper history: it was constructed between 1895 and 1899 after a major downtown fire and originally served as the personal residence of 19th-century firearms inventor Andrew Burgess, per the St. Augustine Historical Society, which notes Burgess held the second-most firearms patents issued to an American behind John Browning.
Inside, Nine Line Apparel sells its signature patriotic and military-themed clothing, while Black Rifle Coffee operates a coffee bar serving espresso drinks and its own coffee blends, along with apparel, hats and accessories. The St. Johns Citizen reports the downtown store is open daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., according to its listing. The dual-brand model mirrors how both companies have scaled well beyond their origins as small, niche e-commerce operations.
Window Lettering Cleared Historic Review
Before the store could open, its signage had to clear local preservation rules. The St. Augustine Historic Architectural Review Board approved the store’s window lettering on October 15, per the same outlet's reporting. That review falls under HARB’s broader authority over exterior building changes, signage and demolition requests across the city’s five historic preservation districts, a mandate the board has held since its establishment in 1974, according to information from the City of St. Augustine. The storefront sits inside the Town Plan National Historic Landmark District, placing it squarely under that oversight.
Nine Line Apparel was founded in Savannah, Georgia in 2012 by brothers Daniel and Tyler Merritt, both of whom served as Army captains and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, the St. Johns Citizen reports. The company’s name comes from the military radio request for battlefield medical evacuation known as the 9-line. The St. Augustine location is one of 14 Nine Line stores nationwide, joining existing Florida outposts in Daytona Beach, Delray Beach and Key West.
A Fast-Growing Retail Footprint
Nine Line has grown well beyond its apparel racks in recent years. The company generated $39.8 million in total revenue in fiscal year 2024, a 17% year-over-year increase driven by expansion in wholesale distribution and third-party logistics, according to Crowdfund Capital Advisors, which notes the company operates out of a 60,000-square-foot production and headquarters facility in Savannah. The brand’s charitable arm, Nine Line Foundation, was founded in 2013 by Tyler Merritt to build adaptive homes for severely injured combat veterans and construct “Veterans Villages” of tiny homes aimed at addressing veteran homelessness, according to the Nine Line Foundation.
Black Rifle Coffee Company was founded by Evan Hafer, a former Army Green Beret, and is based in Salt Lake City, per the St. Johns Citizen. The company is publicly traded and sells its coffee in grocery stores nationwide, and it operates its own shops elsewhere in Northeast Florida, including one on Fleming Island in Clay County. Black Rifle went public in February 2022 through a $1.7 billion merger that listed the company on the New York Stock Exchange under a Public Benefit Corporation charter, according to Business Wire. Beyond its storefronts, the company had expanded its packaged coffee and ready-to-drink products into more than 47,000 grocery and wholesale locations nationwide as of 2022, the San Antonio Business Journal reported.
Veteran Philanthropy Beyond Retail
Both brands have built philanthropic efforts around the veteran communities their products target. Black Rifle Coffee and apparel brand Born Primitive eliminated $34 million in medical debt held by U.S. military veterans last November through their joint Operation Debt of Gratitude initiative, which dedicated all online profits over Veterans Day weekend to the debt relief campaign, according to a separate Business Wire release.
Timing a Bayfront Debut for the Holidays
The soft opening’s timing is no accident for a stretch of downtown that depends heavily on seasonal tourism. St. Augustine draws more than 7 million visitors annually, generating an estimated $3.8 billion in economic impact for St. Johns County and supporting more than 30,000 local jobs, according to News4JAX, which notes tourism accounts for nearly 98% of the local city economy. The storefront’s planned grand opening next month lines up with the start of Nights of Lights, the annual holiday celebration that draws roughly 392,000 visitors and generates between $93 million and $120 million in direct economic impact for the city from mid-November through late January, according to the Jacksonville Business Journal.
