“You'll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. ...”
― JAMIE TWORKOWSKI
Origins: Crush Coffee Bar
At Crush Coffee Bar, the lid chooses the customer. That’s the honest truth as experienced by mother-daughter ownership team, Nichole Decker and Jazlyn Breesnee. There’s just too much evidence that the brief, handwritten messages penned on each individual coffee cup lid exit through the window into the very hands they were intended for. Take the daily devotee who pulled up recently to […]
Origins: Pilot’s Coffee House
How do you get your coffee business off the ground in its inaugural year? For Savannah Rutter of Pilot’s Coffee House in Spokane Valley, it’s taken a lot of Runway. Pun intended: Pilot’s is now moving hundreds of Runway breakfast sandwiches a week, a rock-star menu item featuring bacon, egg, cheddar cheese, fresh avocado and chipotle mayo on a toasted asiago bagel. […]
Origins: Shotzy’s Coffee
Shotzy’s Coffee has dialed up every precaution in order to keep its drive-thru open during the COVID quarantine. But from Shotzy’s perch beside a normally hopping North Sullivan Road, the view has been decidedly different. No East Valley High School students zipping through a few minutes before the first bell. No weekend soccer families fueling up for a crisp day at Plantes […]
Origins: Swell Coffee
What happens when Craft Coffee Nerd meets Personable Drive Through Barista? Swell Coffee. Like many husband-and-wife owned businesses, the Spokane Valley business’ identity is a true marriage of Shane and Alicia Thompson. He is the bean-roasting, third-waving, coffee-mad scientist whose Christmas list features brewing devices that appear straight out of a chemistry lab. She is the on-the-go, service-centric schoolteacher and mom with […]
Origins: Crazy Beagle Coffee
On the surface, it might not sound like praise, but to the ladies at Crazy Beagle Coffee, it’s a compliment of the highest order: “I don’t even know what I order anymore.” “There are a lot of customers who have been here since I’ve been here and they have never once changed their drink in 15 years,” Crazy Beagle Manager Jillian DeHaan […]
Origins: Cozy Coffee
Lisa and Ryan Olson live on a Greenacres farm with their four kids, chickens, goats, sheep and alpacas. The acreage reflected the Olsons’ priority for keeping two daughters and two sons (ages 10, 8, 6 and 5) outside and busy. Outside the house and busy also happen to be priorities for Mom and Dad. As owner of Viking Homes, Ryan has no […]
Origins: Jack and the Bean Shop
Coffee, like so much of life, was served up differently in the 1990s. Otis Orchards staple Jack and the Bean Shop first sprouted up amidst rows of VHS tapes inside a store called Treasure Aisle Video. In the early 2000s, the video store and Jack and the Bean Shop both moved diagonally across the Harvard-Wellesley intersection — the coffee shop into the […]
Origins: International Coffee & Bakery
Growing up, it was milk and pastries. Over time, it was tea and pastries. These days, it’s typically coffee and pastries. Now that siblings Nina Lapin, Dina Nikulin and Roman Chebotarev own and operate International Coffee & Bakery together, they offer it all — including Mom’s famous pastries, breads and cakes they have been eating their whole lives. Family recipes are served […]
Origins: The WELL Coffeehouse Pub & Eatery
Natalie Gauvin has no interest in becoming a flight attendant, but her life’s passion follows the script. “The airlines have it right, you have to put the oxygen mask on you first before you can be available to help others,” she said. An aspiration to “be well” herself and help others do the same influences every aspect of her family/artist/fitness enthusiast/nutritionist/business owner […]
Origins: West Plains Roasters
It’s the end of a decade, and if 2020 Andy LaBolle could travel back and have a chat with his younger self, he would start by having 2010 Andy sit down and put on a seat belt. “I would say, ‘Hold on, it’s nothing like you think it’s going to be,’” Andy said. In November, Andy opened West Plains Roasters in downtown […]
Origins: Wake Up Call
As with many great ideas, this one was partially self-serving. The craft pour over coffee bar at Liberty Lake Wake Up Call has been a smash hit with local coffee drinkers, but Christopher Arkoosh is president of its fan club. He also owns the place. Ever since starting Wake Up Call with co-owner (and mother-in-law) Christi Walsh in 2004, Arkoosh said each […]
Origins: Sams and Coffee
Jake Miller was looking for a day job. After 15 years in the restaurant industry, including a decade bartending most days till 3 or 4 a.m., it was time for less night, more light. Instead of updating his resume, Jake did what Jake does: He created his own day job. “Basically, I quit my own business to start this business,” he said […]
Origins: The Blissful Whisk
File this under the category, “Might Be More Than a Hobby.” The home kitchen mixer Tiffany Cable used to make treats for family and friends measured 5 feet tall and nearly 1,000 pounds. Vaguely resembling a cross between a Star Wars robot and an offensive lineman, the Hobart 60-quart model is known in highbrow baking circles as a “planetary floor mixer” – […]
Origins: The Garden Coffee & Local Eats
CJ Curtis opened a coffee shop for the 88 cents. Sure, she loves lattes and food and friendship and foliage — all the observable ingredients of The Garden Coffee & Local Eats. She loves the entrepreneurial aspects, the camaraderie with employees, the fact it’s located in the heart of Spokane Valley, her longtime home. But the 88 cents? That’s where the business […]