Spike Gjerde’s presence looms large over Artifact Coffee, the Hampden coffee shop he opened in 2012 with then-wife Amy Gjerde. His name is even on one of the sandwiches: Spike’s Greenhouse is piled high with raw and pickled vegetables, onions and provolone.

Now, customers at the Union Avenue eatery can expect a lot more Amy and a lot less Spike. The former couple is separating their businesses, with Amy taking ownership of Artifact Coffee while Spike will assume full control of nearby Woodberry Tavern and its attached event space.

“I don’t think its going to result in anything immediately earth-shaking,” said Spike, who has been divorced from Amy since 2019. “It just seemed to be time to … do our own things.”

The separation comes as Amy is actively suing Spike, alleging among other things that he’s failed to pay her the full amount she’s due from their businesses and other payments promised as part of their separation agreement, totaling $500,000 in damages.

Through his attorneys, Spike has repeatedly sought to have the case dismissed, though the courts have allowed it to proceed. In June, a judge ruled that Spike’s personal lawyers could no longer represent the businesses he and Amy owned together. Through her attorney, Amy declined to comment on the case. Spike’s lawyer could not immediately be reached.

The duo previously co-owned each business, but Amy said she has not been closely involved in day-to-day operations for several years, having stepped back from work to raise their two children.

Now that the kids are in their 20s, Amy says she’s ready to put more of her mark on Artifact.

“This is a new beginning for me in the restaurant industry,” Amy said. She met Spike when she was working as a baker at Jr., a cafe he ran in Bolton Hill. Throughout their marriage, Spike was the driving force behind their business partnership. Now, she’s asking herself: “What do I like? What interests me?”

As she prepared to get back in the restaurant industry, Amy worked with restaurateur Tony Foreman on the opening of The Duchess in Hampden as well as at his Milton Inn restaurant in Sparks. “She has an amazing aesthetic sense and a real passion for guest service and food,“ Foreman wrote in a message. ”I am so excited for Baltimore to see her work and vision unfettered!"

Spike declined to go into what his post-Artifact business plans might include in Baltimore. Woodberry Kitchen, which partly rebranded as a 30-seat tavern in 2022, is nearing the end of its 20-year-lease inside a historic Clipper Mill foundry, but he hopes to come to a new agreement with his landlord, MCB Real Estate.

In addition to his work with the restaurants, Spike, who won a James Beard Award in 2015, has hosted a speaker series and accompanying podcast highlighting various players in the local food scene, from the Maryland Secretary of Agriculture to fellow chefs like Damian Mosley of Blacksauce Kitchen and Will Mester of The Wren.

Even without Spike, Artifact will still be a Gjerde family affair. Their son, Finn, currently works there and at Woodberry, and their daughter, Katie, plans to start working at the coffee shop soon.

Amy says she will maintain the restaurant’s broader ethos of offering locally sourced food — the kind guests might expect to see at high-end Woodberry Tavern — at affordable prices. “It’s only going to get better,” she said.

There will be some changes though. “I don’t want to use the word ‘feminine,’ but a little bit softer,” she said of her approach. She wants to put pillows on the wooden chairs and add a kids menu. She’s considering her own female-driven speaker series, and has talked with friends about hosting a Taylor Swift listening party.

An avid gardener, she’ll tend to the plants outside that she said need some love, and explore more Pennsylvania Dutch influences on the menu, a style that has informed her approach to food as a York, Pennsylvania, native.

While Artifact typically closes in the afternoon, Amy says she’ll consider expanding the hours of operation and possibly serving dinner on a regular basis.

She’ll make some changes to the menu, too. “You will probably not see Spike’s Greenhouse on there,” she said.

This story has been updated.