Rare Bird Celebrates Local Arts, Enhances Café Business

With all the growth in The Little City these days, it’s hard to keep track of the number of independent coffee shops, cafés, and tea parlors popping up around town. But, to our knowledge, only one – Rare Bird Coffee Roasters – simultaneously serves as a prominent gallery featuring local artists.

In our recent Weekend Buzz, we encouraged readers to visit Rare Bird at 230 W. Broad St. to enjoy local landscape painter Lisa Green’s exhibit, “Wild Spaces,” running through Jan. 11. Mounted in Rare Bird’s two spacious, sunlit café parlor rooms, the exhibition invites visitors to “step away from the daily rush and reconnect with the rhythms of the natural world” through Green’s explorations of  “meadows, mountains, and coastlines where shifting light, rich textures, and open space create a sense of presence and wonder.” All, while the rich aromas of freshly ground coffee, and the bustling sounds of a friendly local café and coffee roaster further enhance the senses. 

The Falls Church Independent visited Rare Bird for an oak milk latte and a chat with café co-founder Lara Berenji. We were curious to know how Rare Bird manages consistently to mount compelling local art exhibitions while operating its complex in-house coffee roasting and food retail operations. We also wanted to learn more about the owners’ commitment to enhancing local arts. 

On October 4, Rare Bird celebrated its ninth year in Falls Church City and they’ve been mounting formal local arts shows four times a-year, every year since their first, Berenji told us. 

“The art shows are three months long to give local artists a good chance to be seen and to show off their work and for us to enjoy it,” Berenji said. “And then we have interim art shows in between where we try to connect with parts of the community. So, it’ll be like schools, or nonprofit organizations or artist groups, that get another chance to kind of show their work as a group in between the featured artist shows.”

For instance, before exhibiting the current “Wild Spaces” exhibit, Rare Bird showed work by a variety of artists from the Arlington Artists Alliance. “They were up just before this show, and they’re great,” said Berenji. And interspersing the work of such art collectives is, “just a better way to include other parts of the art scene in the area.”

Many Exhibitions in the Works

We were curious how Rare Bird ended up exhibiting Lisa Green’s landscape paintings. “So, Lisa, like all the artists we’ve had here with the exception of maybe the first four or so, they were all submissions through our website,” Berenji said. “We have an art show submission document on our website, so we’ll give you the next slot, but currently we’re booked up through 2028 and we have other applicants we’re still reviewing.”

“There’s a little blurb on there that says we probably won’t be able to show your work until 2030 if we go through the process,” Berenji said. “So, we’re getting there. I wish I had more space on our walls so we could have more artists, but, you know, we have what we have.”

Central to the Mission: Supporting Local Arts

Asked why exhibiting local artists is such a core element of Rare Bird’s mission, Berenji likened the artisanal aspects of the specialty coffee trade as another form of craft or creative expression. “I think having our work as artisanal itself – the coffee roasting, the baking, the preparation of the coffee drinks – I’ve always seen that as another form of art. And, having an artist background myself, I’ve just always [supported] these spaces where it’s commonly attended by anybody, and there’s no restriction, and you don’t feel like you don’t belong or that you’re not credible enough to enter, or judge, or look, or enjoy artwork. I just really love being in this area to let people see art and to experience it on a daily basis,” she said. 

We asked Berenji what sort of art she likes to create. “Me personally?,” she asked humbly. “I was actually just discussing this with one of our regular customers today. I personally like to work in charcoal, charcoal drawings. And I also really like to sculpt by building with clay. But the time I have to do it is very limited and almost non-existent. So, I find little micro outlets, like, ‘Oh, we need to do a painting on the window. I will do one right here.’ Or, ‘We need to do some woodburning for signs for our wholesale customers, so let’s do some of those.’ So, small little things like that that kind of fill my already-filled time,” Berenji said with a laugh.

Asked if she ever wished to formally display her own artwork in the gallery spaces, Berenji quickly shrugged off the suggestion. “No, I don’t. I’m not embarrassed by my artwork or anything, I just don’t have a need to show it…. I’d rather see other people’s work. I just enjoy creating when I can.” 

So, why does Rare Bird emphasize local artists and artworks? “I think that being local allows you to connect a little bit easier,” Berenji said. “You can see some of the subjects the artists choose are relevant to the area. The current [“Wild Spaces” show] that’s up now has some paintings of Great Falls and the Potomac and also other places in the U.S. It just helps you go, ‘Hey, I’ve been there.’ And you feel a part of it naturally.”

“So, it’s not about just supporting local artists to help launch them, it’s about enhancing the sense of familiarity?,” we asked. “I do think it’s a lot of wonderful things wrapped up together and it’s just mutually beneficial for us as the cafe and for the artists themselves and also the exposure for the customers coming in. It’s just wonderful for everyone, I think.”

What does Berenji think about Falls Church City’s local arts scene? “I actually think it’s pretty darn good,” she said. “There’s the Falls Church Arts group and then there’s Studios at 307 arts studio, and there are just arts everywhere…. It’s very supportive. You can even see on certain electrical boxes [the City] hires painters to beautify it.” 

'Second Chance Plants' Raise Money for American Bird Conservancy

Enhancing the gallery experience, Rare Bird also offers starter plants in funky misfit planters at affordable prices displayed along the window sills and wall shelves. “So the plants are interesting because we’d purchased a couple at the very beginning. But, as plants do, they grow and divide. So we started not having enough space for them. But then we simultaneously realized we’d run across some broken vessels that are not serviceable." 

I interrupted to recall with laughter that at home, we still possess a chipped chemistry beaker purchased from Rare Bird years ago and we still use it for plant propagation. “Yeah, sure," Berenji said with a laugh. "Anything that can hold water – bowls, cups, mugs – they’d be chipped and we couldn’t use them for servicing anymore,” Berenji continued. “But it just felt like such a shame to toss them. So, we kind of combined those two together and we call them ‘Second Chance Plants.’ And half of the proceeds from the [sale] of them goes to the American Bird Conservancy.”

Local Ceramics on Display

We also asked about Rare Bird’s beautiful tiny ceramic coffee and tea ware on permanent sales display. “We commissioned Haruko Greenberg. She’s the owner of Pottery Nomad,” Berenji said. “And we asked her to make this specific style of mug which happens to be a lot of her own work naturally…. Some of them are stamped with her logo, so we’ve collaborated a little bit with that. But, that’s on our shelf all the time. As it's another artisan’s work, it’s another [genre] of art people can enjoy and collect and see. And even some of the clays she uses are from around here or North Carolina, or [other parts of] Virginia.”

“Whenever I walk in, I think these would make great gifts, but it also makes me think of coffee, or tea, or just sitting down with a relaxing feeling. It’s part of the whole aesthetic,” I suggested. “I think that’s why we’re so drawn to coordinate with [Greenberg] and have her work here because it also [represents] us as well, right? We also want to encourage art, and we love coffee as well, and the combination of the two, it’s giving, and it’s community, and it’s very much intertwined.”

Asked how Berenji feels when she walks into another soulless coffee shop bereft of local art such as a Starbucks, she expressed surprising sympathy for how difficult it can be to display fresh artworks. “I think when I see things like that, I understand where they’re coming from because it’s a challenge to find and coordinate artists and to make sure you always have something on your wall,” she said. “When you’re a giant corporation and you’re designating these things to other people’s tasks, I can see that it would be much easier to just say, ‘Uh, get some work and put it on the walls. They should not be blank!’” [Laughs]. 

Breaking News: 'Other Bird Bakery' to Open in Westover

Are rumors true that Rare Bird will be opening up a new café in Westover?

“So, you did hear [that] – somewhat correctly – but, it was a little premature in the article that came out [in ArlNow],” Berenji said. “We’re actually not doing another Rare Bird there. We’re doing something a little different. It’s going to be called Other Bird Bakery. We’re doing a bread focus [venture] there so we can compliment the other businesses there. We’re opening right next door to Village Sweet Bakery. And we love them very much. They helped us start Rare Bird when we first opened here. We were buying baked goods from them before we had our own bakery. But we’re hopefully going to add to that community by bringing bread. But, of course, we’ll be having coffee as well.” [Laughs].

So, will Other Bird Bakery also have art space?

“We will. It will be much more limited,” Berenji said. “But I’m waiting to see what we end up with ultimately because we haven’t finished getting through the permitting process. So, we’ll see what holds and what changes with that.”

Asked how incorporating gallery spaces into Rare Bird has served the cafe’s overall business model, Berenji said, “I think it brings joy and interest and also draws people in, you know?.... I think that if it’s possible for a business to do it, they should do it.”

Obviously, it’s a real challenge to mount more than four shows a year, so is it all worth it? “It’s a little bit of a challenge,” Berenji said. “But, not enough to ever hold me back. I would never put that aside. I will always make time for it.” 

An opening for Lisa Green’s “Wild Spaces” exhibit will be held at Rare Bird, Nov. 1, from 2-4:00 p.m.

By Christopher Jones