6 | February 2014 • www.specialty-coffee.com
Y
ou can almost smell the maple syrup wa ing in from
Canada from the front steps of the original location of e
Woods Co ee in Lynden, Wash. A scant ve miles from the
border, the store has become a beacon for immediate residents
and commuters from northern neighbor alike.
e pastoral, small-town landscape evokes a feeling of folksy
calm where a co ee shop might be a community space and less
of a business.
Owner Wes Herman strives to maintain that strong
community feeling up front, but behind the scenes, the
business is far from folksy—it's a well-tuned machine.
He said the initial idea for a co ee business came about as he
was selling a product to co ee shops across the country. Before
breaking ground or even choosing a name, it was a family
business.
" e Woods Co ee came about when my wife and I were
homeschooling four children and they were all teenagers,"
Herman says. "One day we said, 'What if we started our own
co ee shop.'"
Herman knew co ee shops pretty well, but he also knew
making a business was more than the front of the room. Training
the family in all aspects of the business was the rst step.
"We actually took it on as a part of our curriculum in
homeschooling to learn how to start a business, how to brand,
market the business and implement, and how to run a business
for a long period time," Herman says. "So 12 years later, every
family unit has someone working in the business."
Even the name of the company comes from the family. "We're
in the northwest where we've got mountains and tress. My
daughter, who was 19 at the time, suggested the name e
Woods Co ee—it t with our interior motif and that's how
it all came about," Herman says. "We decided calling it e
Woods would be a part of the interior design where we put in
beams and river rock and replaces and leather—very natural
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