XO Coffee Company

All You Need is Love (and Coffee)

Before you even enter, the newly opened XO Coffee Company gives off sweetheart vibes. The downtown Plano eatery welcomes guests with bubblegum pink doors and airbrushed pink hearts on the windows, with the letters “XO” printed inside. Even the legs of the white benches spell out “XOXO” in a cute, clever way.

Husband and wife David Martin and Linda McCall opened the coffee shop Feb. 11. When they were dating, David and Linda always signed off their text message with “XOXO,” and thought the sentiment fit their soon-to-be coffee shop perfectly. “One of the words people most associate with coffee is love,” David says. “Great coffee and customer experience evoke the emotion of love.”

Linda, an interior designer, envisioned the coffee shop as a cozy space – a place where everyone could feel welcomed, and it’s exactly that. Linda and David found the location a year ago – appropriately on Valentine’s Day – and fell in love with the space.

While renovating the building, they found traces of the shop’s past – the original water well, pieces of fabric, glass bottles, an old knife and a toothbrush that was fossilized, to name a few. Linda wants to display the items in a shadow box, and hang it in the hallway as a reminder of what XO Coffee Company used to be.

XO’s specialties are their house-made syrups and pour over coffee, but the baked items are also hard to resist, like blueberry waffles or raspberry chocolate cake. They also serve breakfast burritos and tacos, omelets and daily specials. The coffee beans are from Novel Roasters in Dallas, and they produce coffee with just the right amount of flavor, even without adding sugar or cream. The vanilla latte is David’s personal favorite, and Linda prefers the pour over coffee.

XO has unique options for kids, like the frozen “dirt” or frozen chocolate cupcake. Linda and David wanted the shop to be as kid-friendly as possible (they are parents to three children), so they serve cold drinks like the handcrafted XO soda, customer favorite raspberry lemonade and handcrafted lavender cloud soda.

XO Coffee was Linda’s dream, one she shared with David, and now, one she shares with someone new every day. “We got married three years ago, and we were looking for our next exciting opportunity, something for us to do together,” David says, smiling, and this was it. Love and coffee – it’s all you need – and you’re reminded of that every moment you spend at XO.