Mara Lindqvist opened Spruce Blend Gates in March 2019 in a former hardware shop in Shindencho. The spruce tree in the back garden was already there. It had been growing through a gap in the fence for at least twenty years, and Mara decided to keep it rather than cut it down. The name came from that tree, the blending of different origins she was already obsessed with, and the gates of the old shop front that she repainted dark green and kept as the entrance. The first week, she served coffee from a second-hand La Marzocco Linea she'd bought from a closing cafe in Bristol.