Espresso Roma located on East 13th Avenue near the University of Oregon campus was demolished Thursday to make room for a new student apartment complex.
Business records show the Chicago-based developing company CRG – Integrated Real Estate Solutions, the same company who built the Chapter at Eugene housing complex one block south, is behind the project. The cafe’s planned demolition was first reported by the Eugene Weekly in June.
Espresso Roma has been in Eugene since 1984 and its proximity to the UO campus has made the cafe a staple for students and locals alike.
Recent graduate Libby Mackin moved up to Eugene to attend UO and recently graduated. She said the development was “destroying a lot of things that make Eugene unique.”
“Roma has been a pillar in so many of my experiences and same thing with everything else on this street,” Mackin said.
By the evening of Dec. 11, the building was transformed to a pile of fenced-off rubble.
“Everyone I talked to knew the name Cafe Roma and would go on and on about it; I personally only went there a small amount of times, (but) it was good,” Eugene resident Alex Rowe said.
CRG also plans on tearing down the nearby Maple Garden restaurant to make room for the proposed Alder Chapter. The project is expected to be completed in 2027.
Owners of Espresso Roma could not be reached for comment at the time of this publishing.
This is a developing story and maybe updated.
Boebert • Dec 19, 2025 at 11:24 pm
Eugene became a cesspool of sports marketing a long time ago. It will eventually implode into nothing; like taking a sledgehammer to a CRT. The “businesses”, I say that in quotes, will never be missed because Eugene is a soulless place that masquerades as an educational institution. It takes in peoples’ money and nothing happens. I hope that the kids of today realize that. Don’t miss the past, it doesn’t mean a thing. They don’t even have a hospital. A losing season of Ducks football will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Greg Bryant • Dec 17, 2025 at 11:01 am
The only three cafés near campus with gardens – Roma, Glenwood, and Excelsior – were demolished for expensive student housing towers. As everyone knows, these lovely gardens inspired people’s writing, thinking, and conversations – nurturing us with a tiny bit of nature and a healthy refuge from campus. They’re gone – replaced by what? The towers, backed by Wall Street, have steadily pushed up the cost of housing in Eugene, through price-fixing (search for ‘realpage’). 14,000 unaffordable student units in Eugene are in this system, and 1,000 are kept vacant to create scarcity, to keep the prices up, to maintain asset value. Meanwhile, they siphon $20 million each month out of Eugene’s real economy: pushing down wages while pushing up rents. The garden cafés were much more in the public interest.
Francisco • Dec 16, 2025 at 2:53 pm
Their scones will be missed !!!! Where will I be able to get them now?????
Jared • Dec 11, 2025 at 8:06 pm
Eugene letting the UO and phil Knight destroy everything for a few more students. Good times. Jackasses