New stand features coffee, tea and family

Paula Hyatt got inspiration for her new business, Coffee, Tea & Me, a drive-through espresso stand and cafe, from Hope.

“My 18-year-old daughter, Hope, got a part-time job at a coffee shop and she came home and told me what a great business it was and that we needed to get into it,” Hyatt said. “I was looking for a small business to start and had been thinking that I might want to open a day care, but I liked her idea.”

That inspiration led Hyatt and her family to open Coffee, Tea & Me at 11809 E. Sprague Ave.

The coffee and the tea took some time to select. The Me part is all Hyatt, who’s generally there from open to close.

Hyatt designed the décor to be both cozy and comfortable, with room for outside seating. She offers all the traditional coffee drinks, served hot or cold, and she features an assortment of pastries, muffins and sandwiches. As the weather turns to fall, she plans to offer soup.

The shop’s foundation, however, is its small-town customer service.

“That’s the most important thing,” she said. “I want to make sure we give the customer exactly what they want. There are a lot of coffee shops out there. Customer service is what I think will keep people coming back to this one.”

After some initial experimentation with a dark roast coffee blend for her customers, Hyatt feels she’s found the perfect match for her customers in a locally roasted coffee from Waverly’s Premium Coffee Roasters.

“It’s a delicious coffee,” she said. “It’s a medium roast, single-bean coffee. It’s made entirely from Peruvian beans, and our customers really seem to love it. It makes a great cup of coffee.

“I love a bold coffee and we started out with one that was probably a little too much for the average customer. Now I think we have one that is just right.”

She’s taken just as much care in selecting her teas.

“It’s all about my customers,” Hyatt said. “I really enjoy all the people I’ve met. It’s what makes this business so much fun. We’ve been open about four months and already I’ve made friends with so many new people.”

Especially on Mondays.

“We started doing Muffin Monday,” Hyatt laughs. “I bring in extra muffins and give out free muffins with every coffee drink. I already have people who make that their first stop on Mondays.”

And she’s found plenty of enthusiastic help.

Daughter Hope helps out when she can, but the family’s biggest go-getter is 10-year-old daughter Sunshine.

“Oh, she loves it here!” Hyatt said. “She helps out at the window and she just loves chatting up the customers, asking them how their day is going and asking them if they have a stamp card. When things get busy and the cars start to backup a little, she grabs her pad and pencil and goes out to take orders.

“I think my customers miss her when she’s not here. They’re always asking ‘Where’s your helper?’ ”