We were lucky to catch up with Brooke Loutzenhiser recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Brooke thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

After my husband unexpectedly lost his first wife and was left widowed with two very young daughters, He wanted to find purpose and meaning in his career. He had been climbing the corporate ladder in Heathcare administration but wanted to find something more fulfilling. His dad had roasted coffee for a hobby. He had an idea to create a new coffee shop, titled ‘restoring grounds’.

Fast forward to 2016, when I met Dan. We were watching the news one night when a local coffee shop we loved was going out of business. We called up the owners and began having conversations. We bought Stories Coffee in 2017 an began operating as a mobile coffee shop.

During this time of development, we traveled around the country visiting innovative coffee shops. We gathered ideas and breathed new life into the brand. We wanted to be a specialty coffee shop, with locally roasted coffee beans. We wanted to provide a healthy breakfast menu, lunch items and also expand our smoothie and tea menus. Our goal was to be unique. To have a local beer menu, wine and cocktail menus and to create a space for local musicians to perform on the weekends. We wanted the space to have a modern feel, but to have comfortable seating to encourage our patrons to stay a while. We wanted to support our community, to give back in ways that we could.

Birthing a new brand is nothing short of hard work. We had to create a menu, create our brand, design the shops with the correct equipment to run not only a coffee house, but one with a drive through. We had to come up with a training program, hire on staff and do product testing and development. We overcame many challenges we didn’t know we would even face.

Our flagship location was birthed in the spring of 2017 and we opened during the height of the Covid pandemic. We were unable to open our doors for seating inside, so we operated our drive through and had occasional live music for entertainment. We overcame the challenges of not only opening our first business but operating during a global pandemic. From the day we opened, we had the full support of our community. People showed up. It became our busiest location to date. In 2022, we birthed a second location in a suburb of Omaha and our coffee brand continued to expand. We now have 6 locations and counting!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

What started a hobby in coffee roasting, quickly escalated into a full coffee roastery and cafe. Jim Loutzenhiser, my husbands father, now at age 75, started roasting coffee beans on a table top coffee roaster for fun. He grew to love the trade, and when my husband and I bought the Stories Coffee brand/rights, we began growing the roastery side of the business. After we opened a few coffee shops in Omaha, Nebraska we recently purchased an 8,000 square foot roasting facility that Jim now operates. He now is roasting 30,000 pounds of coffee each year. This number will only continue to increase! Jim now teaches coffee classes at our flagship location in Omaha.

Our coffee shop is very unique to that of many coffee shops in the region. We offer a large indoor seating space (~3,000 sq feet) in the majority of our shops, we have made-to-order breakfast sandwiches, burritos, scones, muffins as well as a full lunch menu with salads and sandwiches. Our coffee menu is very delectable with unique seasonal drinks and a tasty tea and smoothie menu. We are unique in that we also have a large live music scene with local beer, wine and specialty cocktails (including a delightful espresso martini, and a house-made chai cocktail). We offer dining as well as drive through and many of our locations. We are a very up-and coming brand with a modern feel, but also a comfortable feel. We have large outdoor patios and many of our shops are hustling and bustling with business meetings and friendly gatherings. You wont find a coffee shop similar in town.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Never give up. Owning a small business is a very challenging task. Many days the tasks seem endless and the work seems like it is never done. It can be a lot of hard work but seemly not great reword. Opening our first shop in the middle of a pandemic was nothing short of challenging. We had to overcome working out of a drive through, driving revenue in creative ways. During the pandemic when all of the dining rooms were closed, we offered live music on our Facebook page (broadcasted from inside our dining room). We then delivered wine and disposable charcuterie boards for a “virtual” date night. Another way we got creative was offering live music outside near our drive through lane, giving customers a unique experience.

After everything started opening from the pandemic, we had to make sure we have proper cleaning procedures in place. We had to make sure tables were “socially distanced” and that we used all disposable drinkware. We were unique, in that we still wanted our customers to experience community. Especially after the pandemic, everyone was craving community and being together.

Each quarter we take a portion of our sales and donate them to a local non-profit doing good in our community. Our staff ha the option of volunteering at the chosen non-profit. This has really brought our staff and community together.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Dan and I were both in the healthcare field. Dan was working on climbing the corporate ladder in healthcare administration. He was managing outpatient hospital clinics, and was offered a job a the COO for a hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. During that time, our coffee shop business began growing. Our flagship location was doing over 1 million in sales. Dan decided it was time to exit the healthcare world and jump full time into the entrepreneur/business owning world. As a family of 6 (we have 4 daughters) it became a trying time to ensure the business remained profitable as we were growing it, and making sure we could support our family at home!

I myself had a bit of a career pivot as well. I was working full time as a Nurse Practitioner in the NICU at the local Children’s hospital. I had dropped down to part time to help raise our family and take on the marketing/social media side of the business. It has been a challenging role juggling all of the parts, but also a very rewarding experience!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.storiescoffeecompany.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/storiescoffeecompany
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/storiescoffeecompany

Image Credits

William Hess Photography
NuVision Creatives