"We want Brim to feel like Pinehurst's living room," owners Daniel Gironda and Miah Magno told the Sandhills Sentinel when they announced their new cafe last August. The cafe shares the Outpost with the Given Tufts Bookshop, and the coffee counter has had different operators over the years.
The building is called the Outpost now. It sits at 95 Cherokee Road, a 1934 structure that served as Pinehurst's actual post office before the Given Tufts Foundation took it over and turned the front rooms into a used bookshop. That bookshop has never closed, never changed operators, and never made headlines. The coffee counter tucked into the same building has done all three.
The Bookshop and the Coffee Counter
The Given Tufts Bookshop is staffed by roughly seventy volunteers who sort donated books, puzzles, and CDs for resale. Every dollar it raises, along with rent collected from whoever operates the food and beverage counter, goes to support the Given Memorial Library and Tufts Archives across the Village Green at 150 Cherokee Road. The library itself was handed over to the Village of Pinehurst in 2022, but the bookshop and the building remain under the Foundation's care, and the coffee lease is the mechanism that helps pay for it.
The coffee shop inside the Outpost operates as a subtenant, with the nonprofit board selecting its operator periodically. For a decade, that subtenant was known as The Roast Office, operated under the business name Elliott's on Linden. Locals loved it. Then, in the summer of 2025, the lease ran out.
The Roast Office's Lease Ended in July 2025
The Foundation said it opened a competitive process before the lease expired and invited the Roast Office's owners to submit a renewal proposal alongside other vendors.
The Roast Office closed in the summer of 2025, ending what The Pilot reported was a ten-year run inside the building. A petition circulated in the days after, and the closure became one of the more talked-about small business stories in the village that summer.
Brim's Owners Bring Food-Service Experience
Three weeks later, The Pilot reported that the Foundation announced its choice: Brim, run by Daniel Gironda and Miah Magno. In a report by the Sandhills Sentinel, Given Tufts Foundation Chairman Stuart Mills said:
"The Gironda family has been a staple of Pinehurst's culinary scene for decades, so we are thrilled to welcome them to the Outpost."
That is not marketing filler. Gironda grew up in the kitchen of his family's restaurant, Vito's, and later cooked alongside his grandfather, Chuck Priest, a classically trained chef who ran the kitchens of multiple country clubs in the area. From there Gironda managed kitchens and cafes across Moore County, including Nature's Own and the well-known Flynn's Coffee Shop, before landing at Sandhills Community College, where he still oversees the cafe inside a space named in his grandfather's honor. Magno brought her own track record through OTG Fresh, the meal-prep and delivery business the couple built together before Brim.
That experience now informs Brim's approach to food and service.
What's Actually on the Menu
Brim opened in a phased soft launch that fall, and by early 2026 it had settled into a routine that locals could set a watch by. The specifics are what separate it from a generic new coffee shop write-up:
- Espresso and gelato imported from Italy, which the owners say avoids the sour aftertaste of cheaper roasts
- Drip coffee from Cactus Creek, the Aberdeen roaster that supplies a good share of the area's coffee shops
- New York-style bagels shipped in from Delucia's Bake Shop in Seven Lakes
- Italian cream sodas and a rotating dessert bar alongside breakfast sandwiches, paninis, and salads
- A rotating selection of prepared meals from OTG Fresh, the couple's original business
Not every review is glowing. Some longtime customers still grumble that the sandwich prices run higher than they expected from a village coffee counter. But the coffee and pastries draw consistent praise, and the gelato has become enough of a draw that people stop in during the afternoon lull just for that.
The Bookshop Next Door Never Blinked
While the coffee counter changed hands, went through a public dispute, sat empty for a stretch, and reopened under new ownership, the bookshop three steps away kept its doors open the entire time. Same volunteers, same hours, same donation bins out front. Proceeds from the bookshop and rent from the food and beverage counter support the library and archives.
How the Bookshop and Cafe Operate
Brim is a good addition to the village, run by people with real ties to the place. The coffee counter operates under a lease, while the bookshop and building remain under the Foundation's care.
Brim has settled into its role as a genuine community gathering spot, hosting live music some evenings and floating plans for family movie nights alongside the bookshop's own programming. Understanding the different arrangements behind the two spaces doesn't make the coffee taste any different. It just makes you a little less surprised the next time something changes.
If you're new to the village or just curious about the businesses shaping daily life here, Rose A Ward keeps close tabs on what's opening, closing, and changing across Pinehurst and the rest of Moore County. Let's Connect if you'd ever like to talk through what's happening in the neighborhood, coffee included.
