We recently connected with Elizabeth Fiegle and have shared our conversation below.

Elizabeth, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

From the first time I feasibly dreamed up opening my own coffee and popsicle shop to the reality of opening the doors of my own shop, it was 4 years in between. The process wasn’t straight forward, and involved a good amount of luck and help from my friends and family, but the dream became a reality on June 15th, 2019.

I first wrote in my journal about my idea for a coffee and popsicle shop in Brevard County, FL in August of 2015, I wrote down the loose idea of what I wanted it to look like and then began testing popsicle recipes on my family and friends over the next 6 months. After that, I didn’t really think about the dream of my shop for another two years. Fast forward to October of 2017 and I got a job at a new coffee shop in the area. Finally, my dream of being a barista was about to be realized. I remember that first October day that I worked my first shift as a barista I thought to myself, “There is nothing else I want to do with my life.” Thus began a year of learning everything about running a coffee shop that I could. I loved every moment of my time spent working in a coffee shop and just knew I needed to figure out how to make this be the rest of my life.

Fast forward another year and half, and through a series of events, I found myself quitting my barista job & signing a lease on my first shops location. I knew nothing, but I knew I would figure it out at I went. I had the passion and the drive to make a coffee and popsicle shop work.

Here we are almost four years later, and I haven’t regretted one moment my decision to jump and open River Road Coffee and Popsicles.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve loved coffee since I was a teenager. I fell in love with local coffee shops in college, where I also realized I was an entrepreneur and wanted to eventually open a business of my own. At that same time I became fascinated with coffee and the entire process and experience that makes a local coffee shop seem magical.

I love that in local coffee shops your baristas can become your friends. The shop itself can become the safest space for you. It’s like stepping out of normal daily life and landing somewhere that is as familiar as your favorite place in your own house. There is community found in coffee shops that isn’t found anywhere else in the hospitality industry and I think that is what sets us apart.

We are proud of our community. We are proud to be a part of that community. We are proud that majority of our customers have become our friends and that we are “their coffee shop.” It’s the people that make what we do so fun and the best job ever.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I think we all had to pivot when the pandemic came about. I didn’t think that eight months into my new coffee and popsicle shop, I would be shut down and forced to become a curbside pickup coffee shop, essentially a drive thru. I didn’t plan for it, I didn’t want that, but I had to adapt to that to keep my business alive.

And so we did, and we survived. We got to watch our community show up for us and decide to support us and keep us around. We should have closed during the pandemic, but because of our customers we were able to remain open and that changed our business forever.

How did you build your audience on social media?

We have never really spent money on marketing, most of what we do is through word of mouth and social media posts. When I was designing my shop I intentionally made it “instagramable” because I knew the better the photo opportunity was, the better chance of people sharing it and wanting to come in.

I also intentionally chose to work with a professional photographer for all of our images we release because their work elevates our product to a caliber that matches what we do. I wanted our photos and what we communicate on our social media to match the quality of our drinks and popsicles.

Contact Info:

• Website: riverroadcp.com
• Instagram: riverroadcp
• Facebook: River Road Coffee and Popsicles
• Yelp: River Road Coffee and Popsicles
• Other: Doordash – River Road Coffee and Popsicles TikTok – Riverroadcp

Image Credits
Moth and Moon Photography