Popular coffee truck team finds a permanent home downtown

On a recent gray Sunday morning, people lined up along a sleepy residential downtown street to order coffee from a 1970 Chevy P10 truck. First Place Coffee had parked on Sixth Avenue just south of Roosevelt Street, in front of a charming craftsman-style bungalow. 

A bubbly French cafe playlist bounced from the truck and across the sidewalk. Parents sat on blankets spread out on the front lawn of the house while their toddlers ambled in the grass. Others, bundled in sweaters and coats, snagged seats on the benches on the house’s porch and turned to peek through the windows of what will become the First Place Coffee team’s all-day cafe, Matilda’s.

When owner Devon McConville started First Place Coffee seven years ago, she hoped to create a sense of community. While working in finance as a regulator, she found that ducking into a local coffee shop was the best part of her day.

“Looking back now, I can see that really what I was missing in my life and my career was that human connection,” McConville says. “I’d go into coffee shops on my break from my office and I felt so much energy.”

In 2015, she saw an opening for a barista job at Royal Coffee Bar and took the leap, leaving her secure corporate career behind to discover more about coffee and herself.

“I absolutely fell in love with it,” McConville says. “Pretty quickly from there, I knew I wanted to do more with it, something on my own.”

While McConville was determining what that would look like, she and her life partner went to a friend’s house. He had a little Chevy truck sitting idle. It was in rough shape, with broken windows and flat tires, but McConville wasn’t scared by the restoration needed.

“I could definitely see the potential,” McConville says, “and thought this is maybe a great way to start something and see where it goes.”

Matilda and First Place Coffee hit the streets in February 2018. Since then, the roving coffee truck has built a strong following, pulling up around Phoenix, serving both classic and inventive seasonal coffees and teas. McConville has always had her “eyes and ears open for a brick and mortar,” but waited to find the right location that would reflect what she’d built on the truck. 

When the charming, historic spot that previously housed Garden Bar became available, “I couldn’t dream of a more perfect space,” McConville says.

The cafe bears the name McConville gave the little Chevy truck: Matilda. McConville is a dog-lover and had dreamed of naming her next dog Matilda; instead, she felt the name better suited the truck, which she describes as “really cute but kind of tough looking on the outside.”

With a new, permanent home, McConville has more in store there than the warming drinks people have queued up for at First Place Coffee. 

“It’s really an all-day gathering space,” she says. “It’s part cafe, part restaurant, part bar. I think now more than ever, we really need spaces where we can connect.”

Matilda’s is anticipated to open in early January. 

What to order at Matilda’s

Along with creative, seasonal drinks, guests will be able to order food all day from Matilda’s counter.

“The food is really going to be inspired by European cafe-style food,” McConville says. “Very simple but very beautiful ingredients.”

The kitchen will be led by fellow mobile pop-up hustler, Matt Celaya. The chef founded the popular wood-fired pop-up Mas Amable and its sibling pizza pop-up Irma, and is a co-owner of Gilbert ice cream shop, Cream of the Crop. 

In 2022, Celaya launched Mas Amable, a collective of chef friends who met cooking at the Gilbert pizzeria Fire & Brimstone. With Mas Amable, the chefs get together, sometimes with other guest chefs, draw up the menu and cook a tight collection of seasonal, ephemeral flame-kissed dishes. This year, they’ve settled into a regular evening service at Phoenix’s Sauvage Wine Bar and Shop. Irma was a natural progression for these former pizzaiolos. They started serving Neapolitan-style pies at cafes and bars around the Valley over the summer.

McConville has admired Celaya’s work for some time, but they didn’t collaborate until Mas Amable cooked at First Place Coffee’s seventh anniversary party in March. Immediately, the two teams clicked. Celaya says McConville has a “magnanimous energy,” while the First Place owner says, “It’s really been a dream collaboration.”

Fellow Mas Amable chef Michael Petry will join Celaya in the Matilda’s kitchen.

In the mornings, Matilda’s will offer items familiar to patrons of First Place — fresh-brewed coffee, a refreshing espresso tonic or a seasonal latte inspired by baklava, any of which can be paired with a baked treat from local bakery The Dinersaur.

McConville will also source local viennoiserie, or laminated pastries. The morning menu will include a bodega-style bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on a poppy-seed roll baked by Chaconne Patisserie. The sandwich will feature housemade bacon glazed with maple and chiltepin, and red-eye mayo. 

In the lead-up to opening, Mas Amable has joined First Place Coffee at its Matilda’s pop-ups. During our visit, the chefs served a sausage, cheddar and fried egg breakfast sandwich topped with a spicy sauce, cutting through all that richness. It’s something that may appear on Matilda’s menu, too, Celaya says. The Mas Amable team worked multiple grills, also preparing breakfast potatoes, omelets and French toast sticks topped with apple compote. Mas Amable sold out in just over two hours that morning.

Other Matilda’s breakfast options will include a soft scramble with sourdough and parfait with granola, yogurt and seasonal jam, McConville says.

At lunchtime, diners will be able to choose from a selection of salads and sandwiches, such as a croque monsieur. The dinner menu will feature shareable cheese boards and dips along with larger salads, roasted chicken and pastas. 

One item on the dessert menu will naturally combine McConville and Celaya’s strengths: affogato. The classic Italian finisher will include a scoop of Cream of the Crop ice cream topped with a First Place espresso shot.

McConville’s team will lead the bar, which will serve a taut list of classic cocktails, such as martinis, negronis and a tiki-style tipple. Beer, wine and zero-proof cocktails will also be available.

The owner and her team have refreshed the space, giving it a vintage brasserie style, adding custom millwork and nostalgic art, including a hand-painted ceiling mural created by local artist Carlisle Burch. Although McConville is adding her touch to the building, she is keen to preserve its historic charm.

“There was a lot that was existing there for us that is just perfect and beautiful and I would never want to change it,” she says. “It’s really just us making it our own at this point.”

McConville also plans to use the new space to pilot coffee roasting for Matilda’s and the First Place truck. Though the truck may idle as Matilda’s gets off the ground, McConville says it will continue on. She also aspires to expand First Place Coffee as a concept. She envisions replicating what they’ve done from the truck, serving coffee and teas in small shops around the Valley.

The same is true for the chefs, who intend to continue to build Mas Amable and Irma.

“I think, if anything, Matilda’s will give us even more firepower to keep doing Mas (Amable) and Irma,” Petry says.

All these plans start with getting Matilda’s off the ground. It’s a place the chefs have fallen for, too. The hominess makes it an ideal spot for a cafe, Celaya says.

“This is the perfect place to have your coffee and read a book,” he says. “It’s a beautiful spot. You feel transported out of the city.”

Matilda’s

Opens in January
822 N. 6th Ave.