Pictured: Cafe Manager Tom Quach serves up his Carrot Cake matcha latte. Photo by Sarah Emily Miano.

Sarasota knows Petrichor as the mushroom people—“fun-gis” who show up at local farmers’ markets with seasonal specialty varieties praised for dense caps, clean flushes and “no off-smells”.

Co-founders Howard Schmidt and Michael Shea began cultivation in a spare bedroom before moving to a unit in Northgate, off Highway 301. “Everything happened in that tiny space,” Schmidt recalls. Rapid growth yielded five facilities for canning, extraction, farming, storage and, most recently, their functional beverage café.

Petrichor Café emerged from what Schmidt calls “a nice collision of different, great things.” Public demand for a brick-and-mortar presence aligned with the area’s hankering for quality coffee. “Hundreds of people drive in at 7am and drive out at 5pm,” he says. “Let’s offer them something real.”

The airy space features cloud-washed walls, pale wood furnishings and polka-dotted mushroom cushions. Shelves hold signature extracts in biophotonic glass bottles; a refrigerated case reveals gourmet mushrooms and cannabis-infused beverages. Manager Tom Quach runs the coffee program, pulling smooth espresso shots while elucidating the menu for eager first-timers. “It all started here,” Quach says. “There’s a lot of history.”

Winter concoctions include Carrot Cake Hojicha: roasted matcha laced with house-made spiced syrup and Daikin Dairy milk, garnished with a skewered maraschino. Banana Bread Latte features single-origin beans from Undercurrent roasters; Evergreen showcases Spirit Tea’s Kodama Sencha matcha. An optional shot addresses every situation: lion’s mane for clarity, cordyceps for stamina, reishi for calm. Bread Bandits supplies pastries.

Their crowning glory: functional mushroom beverages. Lightning, a lemon blueberry seltzer with a full-spectrum blend, targets focus and flow. “It’s perfect for work, social settings, even workouts,” Quach notes. Coming soon: Thunder, crafted with coffee fruit, cacao, chaga and lion’s mane, promising bright cherry and cacao flavors. “It’s a unique twist on a chocolate-coffee drink,” says Schmidt, “made with lesser-known parts.”

What distinguishes Petrichor is their complete control, “spore to sip”, culminating in nano-emulsification technology that delivers active compounds directly into the bloodstream, bypassing liver metabolism. “It’s truly, in orders of magnitude, more bioavailable than anything on the market,” Schmidt says—a stark contrast to powdered mushroom coffees.

Petrichor serves its community beyond the espresso machine. You might grab mushrooms for tonight’s sauté, linger over a mindful THC mocktail, or discover a beverage for your daily rhythm. “People at the farmers markets tell us how much these products have changed their lives,” Schmidt says. The café opens that door.

Petrichor Café, Mon-Fri 7:30am-2:30pm, 1600 Northgate Blvd. Suite A-11, Sarasota.

Pictured: Cafe Manager Tom Quach serves up his Carrot Cake matcha latte. Photo by Sarah Emily Miano.