As downtown Elizabethton continues to flourish with an influx of business, The Coffee Company is ready to get some roasting done early 2017.
The business, owned by John and Lisa Bunn, are expanding operations with Doe River Roasters, located on Armed Forces Drive. A celebration was hosted inside the facility on Tuesday, Dec. 6, to signify the completion process of renovations of a three-unit building, according to John.
“This is technically a three-unit building,” he added. “Kelvin Thomas and I own the building and The Coffee Company is leasing unit A.”
Armed Forces Drive has been a hotbed of action with the recently opened Blue River Studio, located in unit B and unit C serving as a new judge court.
“We have three different businesses now,” John said. “What you see tonight is basically the beginning of the process (for Doe River Roasters). We haven’t moved in yet as an official business – roasting wise. But we wanted to have a little bit of a party for everyone that worked to make this happen.”
The Coffee Company co-owner added that the business is hoping to open by the first of January.
“It is going to be a wholesale roasting business,” John said. “We’re going to roast our coffee here, offer training for baristas. We have a training bar so we can train the employees that will service our customers. In the back will be our service tech area. It is completely furnished to work on coffee equipment of all types. I have a retired engineer that helps me roast, Jerry Harper, and our general manager (Will Hedrick) will be involved in that process too. He’ll actually be the trainer and partial roaster.”
Attendees entered the facility with refreshments offered and music bluegrass music offered by students from East Tennessee State University.
As the hours winded down Tuesday, the celebration provided an opportunity for Mr. Bunn to look at how downtown has grown over the years.
“We’ve been in business since 1991 since opening Duck Cross Antique Mall,” John said. “We’ve watched it grow for over 20 years now. I guess the most comments we see are from people that actually don’t live here. A lot of the customers we have from The Coffee Company drive here once a week from either Sugar Mountain, Beech Mountain … Linville. They shop downtown, eat at our restaurants. Then we see the people from Bristol and Kingsport … downtown is vital now. It’s actually grown. We’re excited about what’s ahead. People will starting living here and make it even more vital for the years to come.”