MEET THE TEAM

  • Abbey - she/her

    OWNER

    Abbey is big into bullshitting her way through life. When she’s not at the shop, you’ll find her hanging with her friends, messing with her vintage cars and motorcycles, or mindlessly chugging away at one of her one million hobbies.

  • ASHLEY - SHE/HER

    BARISTA

    Ashley is a native Nashvillian who loves to spend time making music with her husband Johnny and hanging out with their dog Dean. Ashley and Johnny have a band called Golden Blue and they’re working on some fun stuff right now as you are reading this.

  • Joey - he/him

    BARISTA

    Joey is a major proponent of ruffling feathers just a little bit, just for fun. He loves to play guitar, listen to music, wear clothes online and irl, and spend time with his friends. He also likes going on walks. Please do not ask him about natural wine.

  • McKenna - she/her

    BARISTA

    McKenna has an English degree which she has used to make coffee for nearly four years. She enjoys biking on the weekends, working with her besties, and cooking boxed mac n cheese to perfection.

MATRYOSHKA ORIGIN STORY

Click here to learn how to pronounce “matryoshka”.
Spoiler: there are many ways to pronounce it.

Matryoshka was founded upon two major principles: good coffee can be fun, and joy is something everyone deserves to experience in their daily life.

In early 2020, Matryoshka’s owner Abbey Chiavario and her husband Jake purchased a small, 960-square foot unit in an unassuming industrial park on Nashville’s south side.

The space was originally slated to become the home base for Technico, Jake’s coffee and espresso technician business. When the idea to open a postage stamp-sized coffee shop in the front third of the unit came along, Abbey couldn’t resist (this is also where the name Matryoshka comes from — matryoshka is the word for a Russian nesting doll, and the coffee shop is inside of Technico’s workshop. The shop inside the shop, if you will).

Before opening Matryoshka’s door, Abbey had never worked in the coffee industry, but knew that she wanted to create a fun space to enjoy coffee and art that didn't quite exist yet.

Heavily inspired by the book Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee — a book about how aesthetics in our environments can create massive amounts of joy — Abbey set out to build a coffee shop with her own two hands. She quit her job in August 2021 and spent the next four months building, tiling, and painting, and learning how to be a barista.

Matryoshka officially opened in December 2021, and has come to embody so much more than good coffee served in a colorful shop. It represents community, inclusivity, joy, play, a safe space, and we hope it continues to evolve in this same way.

Matryoshka is a dedicated safe space for our LGBTQIA+ community and other minority groups and we intend to do all we can to ensure we stay that way.