We recently connected with Carrie Collins and have shared our conversation below.

Carrie, appreciate you joining 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

The key for me opening Arcadia Coffee was to see what space there was in the community and looking at how we could fill that space. We are a family of artists and creatives. Where we were living at the time had no where that we felt spoke to who we were and what we had to offer. We wanted a space that not only served extremely good craft coffee, but had opportunities for artists to come together and collaborate in ways other than just hanging artwork. The first step was finding the building. We actually found our current space years before we actually got the chance to move into it. We knew that timing would work better for us to start in a smaller space, and work into our dream space. We established funding, shop ethos, and started to build! Not only build the building but build the community around it. It took about 6 months from getting the keys to opening our doors. And it was horrendously difficult. What we weren’t ready to face was that in the small town we started in, they weren’t interested in creative female small business ownership. So they made it very difficult for us throughout the permit and licensing processes. Sexism isn’t something you think would be prevalent when opening a business but we absolutely came face to face with it. We knew what we were building was worth it and successfully opened our first coffee shop. Once we were to the point we knew we were outgrowing our first space, just like that our dream space came up for lease. It was not an easy decision to move. We had built this very beautiful community, which we didn’t want to abandon. But we also knew that if we were actually going to succeed, we needed growing room, so we made the leap. To this day it was the best decision for the business that we could have made.

Carrie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Carrie Collins and my company is Arcadia Coffee. We specialize in craft coffee and having a creative space for artists. Coffee & Art are equally important in our business. We participate in local art walks, host open space art nights, and rotate a local artists monthly. When you come into Arcadia, we want you to feel like it is as much yours as it is ours.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When we decided to move our business, we were promised a certain date that we would get our keys to the new space. In that we made the decision to shut down our first shop in order to start construction on the new space. We had projected time and money to do so. And then months went by without having the keys in hand. Bills were still due. Staff was still needing paid. So I partnered with a local food truck owner to permanently park the truck and serve coffee out of it while simultaneously doing construction on the space once we got the keys. It total we were in the food truck for 8 months. Making that called saved the business. We opened the new shop a year later than projected. But we got it done, and the shop is thriving.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I was raised to be loyal, in my life that had become being loyal to a fault. People would come into my life and business making promises. I am someone who undoubtedly keeps my promises, but unfortunately had to learn the hard way that others don’t live the same way I do. I wouldn’t say that I had to unlearn trust, but I absolutely had to unlearn opening my energy and space to people who haven’t earned it. I had to relearn caution.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.arcadiacoffee.org
• Instagram: arcadia.coffee

Image Credits
Brooke Wagner Photography