Photos: River City Roasters Opens by Bicentennial Riverfront Park

River City Roasters does paninis. It does soup. It does turtle candies (nuts slathered in caramel and chocolate.)

But what the new shop at 131 E. Hydraulic Ave. does best is fresh coffee. Owner Erich Goepel roasts the coffee beans outside the city-owned building at and brews a variety of flavors.

"All the coffee we used today we roasted yesterday," Goepel said a few hours after the shop opened Saturday.

Goepel will celebrate the shop's grand opening Saturday starting at 7 a.m. with free balloons and coffee samples. Raffles include single-serve bags of coffee, turtle candies, a giant gift basket and - as a grand prize - free coffee for a year.

The coffee shop opened quietly Saturday, about five months after with Yorkville officials in June. The shop , behind and .

Both Creative Kernels and White Water Ice Cream opened this summer. Presently, White Water Ice Cream is open from noon to 8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and plans to close for winter Nov. 20. Creative Kernels has been open only Fridays through Sundays recently to gear up for the holidays but plans to resume daily hours after Thursday, according to the company's Facebook page.

River City Roasters' hours are 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, Goepel said.

Customers also can order and purchase larger quantities of roasted coffee beans (or ground coffee) at the store.

The space includes a conference room that the public can reserve for meetings or special events. It also will host Santa during the city's celebration Nov. 18.

For more information, see the company's website or Facebook page.