Among things keeping Heat’s Jimmy Butler busy during his suspension? His new BIGFACE coffee shop
While the Miami Heat has been on the West Coast playing basketball, Jimmy Butler has been in Miami serving his team-issued suspension. But Butler has kept himself busy with workouts at Kaseya Center and time spent at his new coffee shop.
Butler, who started his own coffee business called “BIGFACE” during the NBA’s Disney bubble amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, recently opened up his first brick-and-mortar coffee shop in Miami’s Design District. The cafe’s grand opening was held in early December.
“It means the world to me, man,” Butler said to the Miami Herald last month after unveiling his first coffee shop. “Because this is only one aspect of my life, and I’m talking about basketball. I want to be able to go into a space and treat it as my home and just be around other coffee lovers, people that love to vacay, love to go to museums, love to take their kids to the park.”
Butler has had more time to tend to BIGFACE lately, as the Heat suspended him on Jan. 3 for seven games for “multiple instances of conduct detrimental to the team over the course of the season.” When announcing that suspension, the Heat also announced that it’s listening to trade offers for Butler after he said during a postgame news conference that he doesn’t believe he can rediscover his “joy” on the basketball court while playing for the Heat.
Butler is eligible to come back when the Heat returns to Miami to host the Denver Nuggets on Jan. 17, and the Heat expects Butler to rejoin the team and play in games if he’s still on the roster at the end of his team-issued suspension. The Heat plays the fifth game of its six-game West Coast trip on Monday night against the Los Angeles Clippers at Intuit Dome before closing the trip on Wednesday against the Los Angeles Lakers at Crypto.com Arena.
“I’m always there,” said Butler, who has made it a habit to visit his coffee shop in the morning hours before heading to Kaseya Center for workouts, shootarounds and practices. “Probably you’ll catch me from like 8 to 10 a.m. But I want to implement a rule where you come in and you talk.
“It’s not about being able to take a picture with myself or being able to take a picture with Neymar, whenever I make him come in there, or whoever else you see on a billboard or on the TV or on socials. You go in there and you have a conversation with them and you get to learn more about them. That’s where this whole dream of making a coffee shop came from and I want to make it a safe haven for everybody.”
With the help of DE-YAN design studio, Butler said he played a “huge role” in the look of BIGFACE’s new coffee shop.
“It’s my baby, it’s my brand,” Butler emphasized. “So I got it to look the way that I want it to look. I’m very pleased with it. We got incredible feedback from everybody. There’s a couple things that I want to change, which I will have changed. But overall, it has been absolutely a blessing and a pleasure to be able to open up my first shop in Miami.”
BIGFACE’s coffee shop (40 NE 40th St, Miami, FL 33137) is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. and on Sunday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. The menu includes espressos, cappuccinos, lattes, teas and more.
“I overheard a conversation that was like, ‘I heard a basketball player opened up this coffee shop and it is absolutely incredible. It’s really cool. The coffee is great,’” Butler said of observing the customers at his cafe. “So it’s good to hear people that don’t know that it was me that opened a coffee shop. They probably know now. Then everybody else knows that it’s my brand, it’s my coffee, it’s my merch.”
When Butler hasn’t been at BIGFACE during his suspension, he has spent some time at Kaseya Center staying in basketball shape. Heat assistant coach Octavio De La Grana, player development coach Remy Ndiaye and assistant athletic trainer Armando Rivas did not travel with the team to the West Coast in order to be available to work with Butler in Miami during his suspension.
The Heat has had discussions with several teams in recent days regarding a potential Butler trade, according to a league source. But as of Sunday night, a deal was not close and the possibility of Butler rejoining the Heat at the end of the week is becoming more likely with each passing day.
Butler, who is in the middle of his sixth season with the franchise, has helped lead the Heat to three Eastern Conference finals appearances and two NBA Finals appearances since joining the team during the 2019 offseason. He has been selected for two NBA All-Star Games and made an All-NBA team three times during his first five seasons with the Heat.
“I love the fact that it’s in the Design District,” Butler said when asked about the significance of choosing Miami as the site of his first brick-and-mortar coffee shop. “I love the fact even more that it’s right down the street from Alo, and everybody knows how much I love Alo. And I love the fact that it’s walking distance for everybody that’s over there.
“I’ve heard for years on top of years that they don’t really got a coffee shop over there. So for mine to be the first one there, it will be great. But we got some more opening very, very soon. I don’t know what cities yet. But I’ve got a feeling we’ll find out soon.”
