The proprietor of a new coffee shop coming to Harpswell Center is making progress with renovations and hopes to open the business sometime in July.

Kelley Hughes and her husband, George Cabot IV, are renovating the former Harpswell Anchor building at 945 Harpswell Neck Road to house the Itty Bitty Coffee Shop. The couple is making “slow and steady” progress, Hughes said by phone on Friday, June 16.

The Itty Bitty Coffee Shop will serve high-quality coffee and specialty drinks, as well as small-batch baked goods made on-site. Hughes plans to have a few seats inside, in addition to outdoor tables. She will staff the shop herself, with help from her teenage daughter.

Hughes is the founder of Brunswick’s Wildflours Gluten-Free Bakery. She sold the bakery and bought the Harpswell property this spring.

The 540-square-foot building was home to the Anchor from 2000 until it ceased publication in 2020. Harpswell News, the nonprofit that resurrected the newspaper in 2021, has never owned or occupied the building.