FOOD
FROM THE
GROUND
UP
An ordinary West Virginian couple started a successful coffee shop with only self-education. BY ALEXIS MCCURDY | PHOTOS BY ANDREW JOHNSON
I
t was a hot summer day in 2016 in Pomeroy, Ohio. Larry and Candice Hess were enjoying a three-day blues fest in the river town. The Hesses regularly enjoyed lunch and dinner in the city, but never breakfast. They thought about how great it would be for Pomeroy to have a quaint coffee and breakfast house, where residents and visitors could sit back and relax. Larry, an instructional designer at Ohio University, and Candice, an employee at an orthodontist office, were living regular lives in New Haven, West Virginia, only a 15-minute drive from Pomeroy. Idly waiting for a coffee shop to arrive in Pomeroy didn’t sit well with them. The Hesses thought they didn’t have the time, or the money to start a small business, but after drafting a business plan on paper, they started to think otherwise. Larry suggested they sell their house to cover start-up costs. They took a proposal to the bank to see if they could gain extra financing with the backing of those funds. The bank then eagerly agreed to finance their project. “By selling our house, we made ourselves homeless in that process,” Larry says. “The only way was to live in the place where we created the business.” With that, the Hesses plunged into the coffee world to create a business that would show rapid success. They started learning about the coffee industry lingo, customs and trends through YouTube, and bought an espresso machine to start experimenting with drinks at home. Of course, no education is complete through a few YouTube videos. Larry and Candice traveled around the country to visit different coffee shops in Chicago, New York,
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backdrop | Fall 2020
St. Petersburg, Florida, Ohio, Kentucky and other states. They talked to shop-owners to get inspiration for their menus and gain advice on their start-up project. In all parts of the country, Larry and Candice found an abundance of support. “It really is this awesome community of people that will talk shop any time, with anybody that’s interested in it,” Larry says. During this year and a half process, in addition to traveling, Larry and Candice also had their hands full with renovating the building that would soon become their new house and business. The place, 102 W. Main St. in Pomeroy, didn’t seem too appealing at first. The building, built in the 1900s, had been through many phases and was most recently an abandoned law office. The downstairs carpet filled the place with an unsavory musk from years of being repeatedly soaked and dried due to the common Pomeroy floods. The upstairs, which would become the Hesses’ home, was in complete disrepair. “The funny thing is, the first time we saw the building we walked out and we were like, ‘Nope, that’s not the one,’” Larry says. Larry and Candice continued to look at 10 to 15 other buildings, but eventually decided to give the first another try. They invited two of their friends, who were both coffee enthusiasts and skilled in large-scale renovation, to look at the place. They began to strip down the building to showcase the nuanced details, exposing the original 1900s wood ceiling and charming brick. “As we opened up our eyes to what could possibly work, and with the help of vision boards on Pinterest, we started to see what could actually be done,” Larry says.
