Coffee talk: RIces Landing Coffee Co. filling a void, and customers are loving it
Rices Landing Coffee Co. serves a Barbie iced latte – a strawberry latte, made with strawberry milk and strawberry cold foam.
Rices Landing Coffee Co. collaborates with local vendors to provide food that complements their beverages.
Barista Eva Humphreys greets a customer at Rices Landing Coffee Co.
Eva Humphreys prepares a customer’s drink at Rices Landing Coffee Co.
Some of the fresh desserts available at Rices Landing Coffee Co.
Rices Landing Coffee Co. offers a varied menu.
Rices Landing Coffee Co. owners Kaiten and Taylor Goolsby with their son, Tucker
Rices Landing Coffee Co. offers a respite for folks to sit and relax.
Two years ago, Kaiten Goolsby had a dream.
She saw the building at 122 Rices Landing Road was for sale and thought it would make a great place to make her dream come true.
But, sometimes, plans don’t always work out as intended. Sometimes they work out even better.
“This building was a dentist office and it had an apartment upstairs,” Goolsby said. “I graduated from college where I earned a degree in teaching. I was working in a preschool at the time, so I was looking for a house and I wanted to open up my own preschool.”
She decided to buy the property and do both.
“I thought I would live upstairs and have a preschool downstairs,” said Goolsby. “But, I ended up getting hired full time at Laurel Highlands Middle School, so I knew I couldn’t open a preschool and not be there, so the next best thing was to open a coffee shop.”
Goolsby loved coffee, but she didn’t know anything about running a coffee shop, nor had she ever been a barista.
She and her husband, Taylor, visited Rustic Joe’s Coffee Shop in Markleysburg. They really enjoyed their coffee and learned it came from Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea in Ohio.
“So we got in touch with Crimson Cup and they actually have a training program on how to open a coffee shop,” Goolsby said. “They tell you what equipment you will need and what you will need to run a coffee shop. I went to Ohio and was trained to be a barista. Crimson Cup is the roaster, and the blend we use is called Armando’s blend. They get their coffee from South Africa and Indonesia and roast it.”
Goolsby said she thought the Rices Landing location would be great since it was right across from the post office and gets a lot of traffic. She said there aren’t a lot of public locations in that area for folks to just come and hang out.
“There are a lot of student commuters that go to California University (now PennWest University) from around here,” she said. “There isn’t anywhere around here for them to bring their laptop and do schoolwork, so this would be helpful to them. I commuted and it would have been helpful to me.”
After two years of renovations and planning, Rices Landing Coffee Co. opened on April 15 and has been very well-received by the community.
Erin Jamison said that Rices Landing Coffee is her favorite go-to coffee shop.
“The drinks, bakery items, staff and atmosphere are nothing short of amazing,” said Jamison. “They are always bringing new drink features to the menu that I end up obsessing over. I love being able to support a remarkable locally owned business. It is a great addition to our community.”
Rices Landing Coffee’s menu has numerous interesting offerings for its customers with some special drinks that coincide with special events or holidays. Their menu features hot, iced, and frozen coffee drinks as well as smoothies in berry, strawberry, strawberry banana and mango peach flavors.
The shop is also available for hosting special events. One such recent event was “Coffee with Veterans.” Customers’ hot cup of coffee was paid for over a two-hour span by Together With Veterans, a community-based suicide prevention program for rural veterans.
In addition to coffee, the shop also collaborates with local vendors to provide food that complements their coffee, including sweets and snacks. Willow Tree Farms provides jumbo chocolate chip cookies, cookie gobs, muffins and pepperoni rolls. Lindaz Little Bakery supplies a variety of cinnamon rolls, espresso gobs and apple squares.
“Everyone was so excited to have something like this in the area,” Goolsby said. “We don’t really have a coffee shop like this in the area. Everybody has to go to Waynesburg to get any type of coffee or anything like that, so a lot of people were excited about it.”
Rices Landing Coffee was two years in the making.
Goolsby said it was quite an undertaking to transform a dental office into a coffee shop. Her husband, Taylor, who loves working with wood, made all the wood countertops while Kaiten painted the wall mural. Her parents also helped with the renovations.
The coupled live in the upstairs apartment for two years during the renovations, but recently moved out after welcoming their son, Tucker, who was born in May.
“It took us a while to get it done,” Goolsby said. “We would go to our day jobs during the week and come here and work on the weekends.”
Since her son was born, Goolsby stops in the shop after hours to handle the shop’s business affairs. During the day, the shop is overseen by Barista Eva Humphreys and other staff members.
She will return to her job at the middle school when classes resume for the fall.
“Rices Landing Coffee Co. is an addition to the area that has been long-awaited,” said customer Kayla Ealy. “The staff is friendly, the location is convenient, clean, and trendy, and the drinks are delicious. The staff steps out of their comfort zone to make unique drinks such as their strawberry shortcake latte, which just so happens to be my favorite. I stop by as often as I can and always receive a pleasant experience.”
Rices Landing Coffee Co. is open weekdays from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekends.
Visit www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088122767183 for more information.