It’s time to rise and shine on The Avenue: A new Hampden café and coffee shop is preparing to open March 7.

Catalog Coffee will take over the space at 914 W. 36th St. to create what owner Dave Sherman is calling a hospitality company “that happens to serve food and beverage.”

“We want people to come in and feel like they’re being taken care of,” he said.

Sherman has been working on Baltimore cafés since 2014, when his first venture, Cafe Cito, arrived in Hampden. The business closed nearly three years later. His other Hampden eatery, Ground and Griddled, operated out of R. House food hall for about five years until COVID-19 shuttered the stall in 2021. For Sherman, Catalog Coffee is the standalone concept worth waiting for.

The shop aims to “provide light and sunshine to the neighborhood,” said Sherman, who has branded the business with smiling cartoon suns and a bright and airy décor. A communal table and standing counter will help the space seat up to 30 people. He’s working with Passenger Coffee out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to supply a menu of finely ground coffee offerings and teas. They plan to rotate through guest roasters later in the season.

Sandwiches for breakfast and lunch, with ingredients courtesy of Reisterstown’s Liberty Delight Farms, will be on the menu. Salads and vegan items are also expected. Sherman anticipates that customers will be pining over the kitchen’s smashed chickpea and scallion salad and their freddo espresso, a Greek specialty espresso that is frothed and served over ice.

The food will pull inspiration from Sherman’s prior Hampden businesses, creating a sort of catalog dedicated to his time spent traversing the Baltimore food scene.

“I just tried to create a place that I would want to go, basically,” he said.