What If The Person Your Town Needs Is You

A town can carry grief in its buildings and still be ready for a comeback, and Swannanoa, NC is proving it. We’re joined by Daniel Lancaster, founder of Short Sleeves Coffee, to talk about turning a 1920s gas station into a specialty coffee shop and community gathering place. Along the way, we trace the deeper story of Beacon Blankets, mill homes, and what happens when a factory closes, a fire ends the hope of rebirth, and a downtown slowly boards up. 

Daniel shares the real timeline behind opening a small business, including the moments nobody puts on social media: construction delays, finances that get tight fast, and Hurricane Helene hitting mid-build. We talk flooding, sump pumps, subcontractors shifting to urgent home rebuilds, and how relief support and local relationships helped keep the dream alive. If you’ve ever tried to build something for your community, you’ll recognize the mix of stress, grit, and quiet generosity that makes it possible. 

We also go deep on coffee culture, from Daniel’s unusual start as a coffee writer to roasting, cupping, and sourcing beans through trusted importers and long-term farm relationships. We explore why coffee shops have become modern “third places,” how collaboration beats competition, and why shared spaces matter when loneliness is rising for teens and adults alike. If you love Swannanoa, Western North Carolina, or the craft behind great coffee, this conversation will hit home. 

Subscribe to Exploring the Valley, share this with a friend who loves local stories, and leave a review to help more people find the show. What’s the “third place” that makes you feel most connected?

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Transcript

Welcome And Meet Daniel

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Daniel Lancaster, I am really glad to have you here today, and I'm excited to have you on our podcast. But I don't know that much about you. What I know about you, I've learned just from drinking coffee. Well, my my thing is matcha at your spot. We all make the best matcha in town. Daniel, thank you. In the whole valley. I'm not even just gonna say in town, in the whole valley. Anyway, and so I know you from short sleeves and I know you from disaster recovery times and things like that. But what's your story? Where are you from?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Yeah, so I grew up mostly in Wilmington. And then we moved out. I went to Montreat College and we graduated in 2018. My wife and I got married actually during our senior year at Montreat. And then I studied ministry at Montreat. And so I began working at Black Mountain Home for Children. I didn't know that. And then as a house parent for a bit, which was really fun. Also really interesting for a 21-year-old, right out of college, newly married. Awesome learning experience. And then the bulk of my work up until starting short sleeves had actually just been in churches, parachurch ministries, nonprofits,

From Youth Ministry To Coffee

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Valley Hope Church right here in Swananova.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Yeah, I learned you were the youth pastor recently. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

For uh collectively, I had two stints there and uh I think a total of about seven years working there, but that's kind of been my primary role working in ministry and with students, teens, and then kind of did a bunch of random things while I was there too.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

You still chose to have children. That's what's amazing. I mean, you must be like Mr. Children because I don't know, that might might have made me think six times about it before I had any. How many do you have?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

We've got three. So my wife, Emily, and I have a seven-year-old son, Elliot, five-year-old son, Theodore, and a two-year-old daughter, Louise.

unknown 1:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

I think I've seen Louise at church because I've noticed the name. You know, they have great names. And so I think I saw her like with, you know, they put the stickers on their backs. I think that's when I that's the only child I knew because she had the sticker on her back. But there you go. So tell me about why, let's see, short sleeves is a coffee shop. What was the building before it was a coffee shop?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah, so it was um a gas station from the 1920s in Swannanoa, back when Swannanoa had a thriving downtown scene. Years ago, there was a blanket factory called Beacon Blankets, which kind of became this hub for Swannanoa with the railroad right there. They became this little downtown district, but Beacon Village, built around this factory, including mill homes, which are all still there, the Beacon homes, a number of which were destroyed and kind of got national publicity. Those homes were all built around this factory. And so there was a gas station right on the corner, our building. There was a bank, Swananoa Bank and Trust, which is right across from us. There was grocery stores and the buildings where Town Hardware is now, Blunt Pretzels, Evanbird, all of this was part of this downtown area that really started to get its footing. Uh, I hope I'm not misquoting, but around the 20s is when all of that kind of came in and really progressed over a few decades after that, up until the factory's closing and then the fire, which later destroyed the factory, any possibility of it reopening in the uh early 2000s.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

So was there do you know if there was a possibility they were going to reopen? I've never heard that.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

So maybe it's true, maybe not. What I've heard from uh folks who've been here a long time is so the factory closed down and maybe it was just local hopefulness that it would rebirth. I mean, it was just a way of living in life for everyone in that town for so many years. I'm sure there was kind of a deep-seated hope that like maybe this will come back to life. Right. And of course, a a fire just takes that possibility away. And so that was pretty shattering. That kind of sealed the deal on that downtime area's fate for really the next 20 years of buildings slowly, kind of getting boarded up and uh building owners not really having the means to keep repairing buildings and just watching that space just slowly shift. And those who grew up with I mean, the stories of people who like come into the coffee shop now who's like who went to the gas station as a kid or went to the bank and whose grandfather worked at the factory, their dad worked at the factory, their mom worked at the factory, their brother, their cousins. And then watching that whole town just slowly kind of dissipate and people move away and businesses board up and you know, phrases like Swana Nowhere coming to be. And that makes sense. It really just was uh what's the new name, new name? Swana somewhere. So that's what we're all saying now. That's right. Uh really is uh we picked that spot. Uh really like for years we've been looking at that downtown area. It's just like such a beautiful place that had a lot of potential. Uh, there's potential for walkability again, there's history in the buildings. Uh it doesn't really just look like another highway exit town. There is, there are these old buildings that have stories, many of which I've heard

The Old Gas Station Story

SPEAKER_00 5:05

and so many that I'll never get to hear. Hopefully we can make new ones. But we saw the area with so much potential, and businesses like Ovenbird and Blunt were already there, starting to pave the way, and cherry tree beads up the block. And then a number of smaller businesses that had planted and okie dokies right down the road. What was Terra Nova and Loot House right there? And then with the park announcing their plans to open, there's just enough things kind of coming together that helped us to feel like this could be a time that we could plant in a building there and really see Swananoa start to like reshape its identity and people have a sense of pride and joy in their town, which seemed like it was lost. Uh however, I think it was just underneath the skin for many years and it was always there. People just didn't know how to express it, and I think uh it's coming to life right now, which is really cool to see.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

I just saw this year, I hadn't uh I hadn't seen it, but the the blanket down movie. And I had never uh understood. I knew that we had beacon blankets in our house. I knew that they were special, I knew that they were uh treasured, like my mom, you didn't use them. They they went on something. You didn't use them, you know, like you didn't wrap up at them because they were special. And that was pretty much everything I knew about beacon blankets before I moved here. And then and then I saw that movie, and I really, really want Rebecca and Jerry to get that movie out. I want other people to see it. I think that I think it gave me a lot of insight into just how people think that live there, that have been there forever. You know, you and I are not from there. We can never claim to be from there. And but but we certainly I certainly have learned how to I understand why they act like they do. Now that sounds like they're weird or something, and I don't mean that. I mean, every town has a culture, and their culture is deeply based in the blanket town.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

I mean, in yeah, it was a way of living, and and for many of them, their their work, their home, their friends, everything was all centered around this for better or for worse. And there's stories on both sides of like there there were some problems with that. That's right. But there was always a sense of still like pride in that and a shared like community of people rallying around each other. Um neighbors knew each other really well, and uh that's also been a really exciting thing to see through the hurricane. Uh I mean, you a lot of broken things make beautiful things on the other side, and uh the hurricane is an obvious example of that. We we would never say that we're, I guess, thankful that that happened. It'd be a lot of benefits that came from it. Yeah, but it brought about that what was meant for evil was turned to good.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

I mean, I that's not biblically correct to say that, but it's also true.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

So yeah, what I mean, truly what yeah came as a place of disaster for I mean, just many of our neighbors right there in Beacon, those same people have since had like I know my neighbors better than I've had before. And yes, it was a year and a half, two years of trauma that they never want to relive. And and I'm speaking on their behalf, so you know, these are their stories. But on the opposite side, there's some of them have said, like, we feel like a new sense of joy, community, pride in town and neighbor and street that we never had before. And yeah, the the disaster of the mill burning down, the disaster of the hurricane, all of these things are in Swannano's story. This kind of like highs and lows, valleys and peaks, which really mimics the town's landscape of the Swann Valley is a valley in between two, just really peaks on 360 views on either side. If you're kind of standing where that factory was, just take a little uh spin, see peaks everywhere, and you're in the valley. And so it's just that kind of highs and lows that is Swannanoa's story. Yeah, and out of that is just something incredibly beautiful. And the town, I mean, Suantanoa means beautiful river originally, and that river is the town is based out of, is also one of the kind of biggest moments of tragedy for the town at the same time. And it's interesting how stuff like that can what be what shapes a town, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

So y'all were already building short sleeves before the storm.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Did it destroy what you had? Did it just stop what I don't know the answer to that question.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

So we we it was March 2024 that we found the building. And so the storm was six months later. September 2024. So we found the building and we kind of really began work on it through that summer. As all projects go, we originally thought we were gonna open in like June, July, and then it kept backing up. And at the point of the hurricane hitting, we were projecting like late October, early November, but we at least felt pretty confident we'd open by the end of 2024. When the hurricane hit, we were really fortunate that many of our neighbors weren't that we were up a bit from the river. However, just through like runoff and through just the age of the building, we had just a bit of damage of rainwater coming in. We had a few inches of water throughout in kind of certain spots. But one of the main things it did just damage-wise, which again, it almost feels uh just like silly to talk about this compared to what I've seen with other people. But we every

Beacon Blankets And Town Identity

SPEAKER_00 10:40

time it rained after the hurricane, we would kind of flood inside. So we had to put a sump pump in. Just something about, I don't know if it was the way the water was redirected through the hurricane or whatever, but we would flood. So we had to put a sump pump in, pour a new concrete pad to redirect water on the outside because we're kind of in a low spot in the street where just when the road out front during Helene was just covered in water, not from the river, but just from runoff, all of it just kind of flowed in. And I spent many days after the hurricane, like every time it rained, just like uh squeegeeing water out of the building. We had some material loss. One of the hardest things was just all of our subcontractors, understandably, were released to do more important work and home rebuilds. And so we had to find like a whole new suite of subcontractors.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

I you became a subcontractor of your very own. That's where I met you. You were doing a doing working on a table when I met you. You were standing it, and then you were gonna yeah, whatever oil top oil and that's what it was.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Ended up, I mean, really through that we, you know, had that month where we didn't have power and electric. We we had an SBA-backed loan that uh for a number of reasons was jeopardized because of hurricane-related things. We my work at the time, I just left Valley Hope and was doing a few kind of random things to support myself through the build out. I lost that during the time. So our money coming in was tapped, but you know, you we still had, you know, overhead, rent, things that we needed to pay to get through the build-out and get open. And all the you know, you plan opening a business. A lot of people tell you like, if plan for however much you need, and then a little bit extra to have buffer. And most people I talk to don't take that advice very well. They kind of were like, we will just barely squeak by and hopefully nothing bad happens and something bad happens. So then it was like, crap. What do you do when you didn't plan for you know having to have a backup plan? Right. And so that just caused a lot of weird ways of like making making ends meet, taking on new things by myself that I was gonna try to hire out for. In the end, it took us about six months longer. But and you know, with that came, you know, extra expense and loss of income. But at the same time, there's a lot of beauty out of it. Organizations like Operation Blessing came in and helped me in a number of ways to offset that. Valley Hope Church, you know, where I was a member of and worked at, helped me. They came in and helped paint and helped with our garage door and are putting a mural up right now that we've been working on over the past year. Just things like Where's the mural? It's gonna be right on the side of our building. Okay, joining uh where there's that.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Across from the bank's bank and trust, or the across from the park. Uh-huh. Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Um, there's like there's been a blank white canvas that when we first moved in, we're like, this would be an awesome mural. And as time went on and we kind of all of the funds that we had set aside for certain projects, like mural, like dream things, got capped and just like surviving after the hurricane. We started nixing things off our like dreamless, like, we're not gonna get a mural, we're not gonna get this. I'm not gonna hire a painter, I'll do it myself, whatever it is. And yeah, so organizations helped with some of those things to still bring that in. And friends chipped in, and really we we six months later we got it open, and just this past Saturday we celebrated uh our one anniversary. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

So, so uh my best buddy and I talk about you occasionally anyway, but we think about you because I don't know if you remember this or not, but so so my my buddy goes and he does disaster recovery. So he goes places and he leaves, and you never know how long he's gonna be gone. And that's hard on me. That that hurts my heart. It makes it's a hard you've seen me. I mean, like I fall apart, it's terrible. But but our line, I always say, How long do you think you'll be there? And do you know what he says? 86 weeks or less. Do you know where that comes from? Do you remember saying that? You said that in a in a Swannanoa grassroots alliance meeting you went to. They said, How much longer, Daniel? And you said, 86 weeks or less, guys, I promise. And and it just was the levity in the room, it was just the whole room went, Oh, that's awesome. You know, like why do we keep asking him?

Hurricane Helene Hits The Build

SPEAKER_01 15:05

He doesn't know. He's doing the best he can. Why are we? And so and so so now that's what Bob says. He says 86 weeks or less. It's actually great because the truth is he doesn't know the answer. You didn't know the answer. Right. We don't know when he's coming back. Yeah, get over it. He's dealing with people who are in terrible situations. If I'm whining because I lost my friend, he's just gone on a trip. Give me a break. So, anyway, you do that for us. And we think of you every single time. It's 86 weeks or less.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Thank you, so you're honored. I that whole phase of my life is kind of probably don't remember exactly where that came from.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

But well, I figure you were tired of people asking. Not tired of it, but you know, it's a question that I don't have an answer to. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yeah, every every other question for I mean, it took us total from when we like found the space to open was a year and a half, I guess. When we thought it would be four months. So from the like the day that we found the building that we would get that question kind of every week, the third grade, where are you at? And we adventure is like, I I've been wrong about this so many times, don't trust me. But maybe a month, maybe two.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

I can compare it to when you're expecting a baby. And people are like, is the baby here? Like, trust me, I will let you know when the baby is here, you know. Like, right stop asking. I know, you know, come on. Yeah, anyways, there's probably a lot of similarities to both of those things. But yeah. All right, so where do you live? What what what part of the world do you live in?

SPEAKER_00 16:28

We live in Swannanoa, about two minutes from the shop. Okay, which is awesome, right off of old 70. So good. Yeah. And your house works fine, not damaged. We at this point were renting, and uh it, you know, we had some water intrusion, had to replace floors, but that wasn't bad. We were definitely worried the morning of the hurricane. A lot of our neighbors were being evacuated just because of our proximity to the river. So we ended up evacuating as well when the fireman was knocking on those doors. Star we go. So we went up to Black Mountain Home for Children to evacuate there. Ended up being kind of a big mudslide that went through their campus, obviously, as many people heard of, and which ended up being a blessing to be able to be there, help in whatever ways I could with that. And then we all kind of just made it through the storm together. A lot of like the staff and just volunteers that were on site at the time. But yeah, then we came back and uh a family uh went away for a few weeks while I tried to figure out what I was gonna do with the coffee shop and just think about getting our home sorted out a little bit and work and all of that. But yeah, we've we fared much better than many people. So take that as a blessing. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

So Swannanoa is uh one of the most exciting things to me is to see anytime something new is popping up in Swannanoa. And you were one of the first new things after I got here, which has only been two and a little bit years. So, but then now all of a sudden pop, pop, pop, it's kind of fun. It's fun to watch and hear the stories about what people are planning and what they're doing. But it is also funny because if we have a ribbon cutting, I tell people that has to be on Tuesday or a Thursday at 11:30 or 4:30, because that's when the chamber people know that they can expect it and they can plan to maybe be there. It increases the chances that people will be there. Funny thing is that in Swannanoa, they're always like, Can we do it on Friday? Can we do it on Saturday? Can we do it on Monday morning? I'm like, I just can't promise you people will show up. I've never had a ribbon cutting in Swantanoa that wasn't packed out.

unknown 18:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

And I mean, it's just it's really cool and it it just speaks so highly of the community there. And it's just, you know, a lot of people uh when I first got here, they were like, you've got to figure out how to build a bridge between Swannanoa and Black Mountain. And I'm like, we don't need a bridge, we just need a footpath to we've got one. We just keep we gotta keep doing it. Yeah, and I there's sometimes I just I I still don't know. I don't I don't understand. They say that people in Hendersonville won't go to Asheville because there's some line that's in the ground. Well, I feel like that a lot of times there's a line in this between Swannanilla and Black Mountain. It's not really there, but it it just happens. A lot of people from Swannanoa don't go to Black Mountain, and vice versa. And there's so many fun, cool, exciting things that are happening in Swannanoa. And so it's it's really fun to watch.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

And we enjoy sending people that way, you know, from the visitor center. It's it's kind of cool because like like papa's that's easy to send people to, right? And that's half almost there. You know, it's like once you get there, you gotta keep going and go see these people, go see these people. And yeah, you know, and we're trying to send people that way, and you're making it so much easier just by opening these different places.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

And uh it's uh for for so long in Swatanoa, it seemed like if somebody asked someone like, What do you do in Swatanoa? And I was like, Well, go to Black Mountain or Asheville, exactly. That was like the top thing to do in Swatanoa. And yeah, and the places that have been there, they've there've been businesses here for a long time, like Okie dokies and I guess Athens was there for a long time, Breakfast Shop. Like the places that have been there forever, like the locals have like deep seated like passion and are obsessed with them, love them, have deep pride in them. But there's only been a few. And generally, if you're not from Swanton, you're kind of like, I drive through that. I guess there's an Ingalls or whatever on the way, and I sometimes get barbecue there, uh, whatever it is. Uh but yeah, now with now there's a place to go person. There's yeah, there's other things to see and movies. Uh here and yeah, just so many more uh just awesome businesses. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

And I but again, it's it's not it's

Eighty Six Weeks Or Less

SPEAKER_01 20:45

not just the businesses, it's the whole the whole culture, just the come on in, let me come show you. Look around, let's go look in the back. Look at this, how we do the is it roasting? Yeah, I guess it's roasting. Yeah, it is like you know, you can see where you do all that stuff, and that's really fun and cool to me. And I'm so excited to have. I mean, we have this short window of when it's not 300 degrees outside.

unknown 21:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

So I'm like loving these outdoor places right now. I'm like, I gotta go, and y'all have a really good one. So that's cool. Yeah, oh it's it's fantastic, it's good. All right, so I have had uh Andy on here from Dynamite. Oh yeah. And I asked him, I said, Where do you yeah, he's great. Where do you go when you go on vacation? And he's like, Costa Rica, all the places where I buy coffee. I'm like, oh so tell me where does your coffee come from? How does that all yeah how does that work? I don't know anything about it.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Andy's awesome. And years ago, I met him when I was kind of just at the beginning and in my coffee career. And I've sort of like a interesting backstory how I got into coffee. A lot of people started as a breezer or something, but I actually started as a coffee writer, kind of bizarre. Most of my yeah, successes in coffee are are just like accomplishments uh surrounding. Around writing about coffee. So coffee reviewer, where people would send me coffee and I would review it or whatever, or I wrote a book a number of years back. Oh, really? Yeah. Just random stuff like that. And uh and I still to this day I write articles regularly for this website called Perfect Daily Grind, which is sort of this industry niche coffee stuff. Sort of two sides of the spectrum where on the one half I weekly, monthly, I'm like writing articles. I'm like, how does airflow and coffee roasting affect the salubility of coffee? Something super niche.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Nerdy. You're a nerd or a coffee nerd.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Okay. And then on the other end of the spectrum, the writing of just like breaking that down for the consumer side or just like a piece on coffee recipes to like make lattes at home or whatever. And that's sort of my intro into coffee. And uh yeah, I just like grew to love dynamite and just how did somebody get started in coffee writing? How do you do that? It was kind of bizarre, just sort of a longer backstory than podcasts would allow, but it's kind of just funny. And then that led me into then home just roasting, just kind of out of my garage for friends, family, anybody who just kind of found out that I had coffee. And then eventually, just to make it easier to just sell it and pass it on to them. I made a website, and and one day some random person bought coffee, and then I figured I had a business. So that's that's really how I got foot in roasting. And so it came from just this like deep coffee

Swannanoa’s New Momentum

SPEAKER_00 23:35

quasi expert lane, and then into roasting and just like stumbled into business, then a few stints as a breeze under various places on the side, while simultaneously I went to college for ministry. I worked at Black Mountain Home for Children, but I'm moonlighting writing about, you know, induction versus convection, hate, and roasting stuff that just feels strange for a youth director to do in the evening. And so I always had these two worlds trying to figure out how those could converge. I talk to my wife often, like I like I have these two unrelated things, coffee and people work and ministry. And how would they ever come together and always trying to figure out like which one am I going to pursue? It really was a light bulb moment when we figured out the plan for short safes. Like, this is an opportunity to bring all that together. But, anyways, to answer your question, I sort of stumbled into coffee through a lot of weird routes. And so I do knew know a few farmers personally and have ordered from them kind of returning over the years. But at this point, I've found a few awesome importers kind of based out of Charleston and Greenville that have really been amazing to connect me with uh just the small farms that they're working with to bring their crop in. We our volume is pretty low at this point from just kind of any place. Just the approach that we're taking is we're not really trying to do a ton of wholesale. We're not really trying to grow, you know, we don't plan to open any more locations or anything, and really just trying to dial in our quality in the amount of batches that I can realistically handle. And, you know, at this point, I had cup, which is a way of tasting coffee like nearly every batch, and we're constantly doing experiments. So we've started with just some of these small farms that we keep buying through these importers. And so the plan is in in the coming years to start visiting the ones like uh Santa Teresa de Mogotan, that's a farm in Nicaragua that we've purchased from for now four years now, and have this like indirect relationship with them. And now at this point, buying pallets worth of the coffee, I feel like uh that may be one of the first trips that we want to plan at our size. And and yeah, who knows where you go from there. But at this point, it's just fun establishing the coffees that we want to keep returning to and having kind of customer favorites and the farms that are really holding their quality control year after year, and for us to be able to invest in them the same way by just buying the coffee every year from them has been really exciting. And uh yeah, so that's that's how we do it at this point. We just get uh and occasionally we went to a coffee event in Orlando a few months ago where we met a few farmers and exchanged some samples and just slowly kind of building that network and finding who are the ones that we want to be with for the long term. We don't we we love to have just long-term standing relationships and uh yeah, dynamite. Coffee convention.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Yeah, that sounds awesome.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

There it's my dream. Most people would be like, What do you talk about the whole time? But you walk in, you're like, Well, there's that new grinder I've been looking at. There's Sulita. And uh yeah, it's super fun, and there's more of them a year than you would probably imagine.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Yes, very cool. Well, um, we were we were discussing coffee shops this morning, and I think that the chamber has seven coffee shops in their in their membership. Yeah. And you know, we only send people who to people, we only recommend chamber members

Coffee Writing To Roasting

SPEAKER_01 27:05

to our visitors who come in. Now, if they specifically ask about some place that's not a chamber member, we'll we'll talk great about it. We won't talk any ugly about it. But you we were talking about how seven coffee shops, that's a lot, and then but they're all always packed out. And it's it's I just think that's fascinating that it's when I was a kid, you drank your parents only people who drank coffee, and they drank it in the morning at home. Maybe they took it to go, but I I don't remember that at all. But how the industry has just grown and it's really cool to it's cool to watch. And and you know, my we have an intern who comes in, she goes to Montreal, or excuse me, she graduated from Montreat last week, and but she does not come to work without a cup of coffee. I mean, and it's gonna, and it wasn't from home. And I'm always like, we're paying you too much, man. But but it's just a thing, and it's it's just exploded, and that's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

It's become coffee shops have become this like third place for people. If you've uh any listeners that haven't heard that term, I forget who coined it, uh, but their people often have the home and work are two places. And for years, the bar was that kind of safe third place, you know, so it's like Cheers or Nuker or whatever, where the bar is the hub that they go to. Then on the opposite side, you've got friends, whatever, where the coffee shop is that safe third place. And for at least this generation, it seems like it it really has become a safe place for all people, kind of regardless of really age, even drink preferences, like being able to expand your offerings a little bit is why we we carry things like lemonade or matcha. My matcha. It's for ratcha. Because it's for you know, we want this to be a s a place where people can comfortably meet with meet with a friend or catch up with someone they haven't seen in a while, or go on a first date or whatever. And so you you want to have that a safe place for that and the options for and coffee shops have just become that for so many people. And you know, times people wonder like, when is the bubble gonna pop? Like, when are we gonna have too much per capita? And it's kind of like the beer scene in Asheville. The rising tide rises all ships, and that's why you know CVS will open up a shop right across from Walgreens. It's exactly and uh same thing is like we the the more of these safe places are, I think the more people just get out of their house and go have there's nothing wrong with having coffee at home, but I think having coffee with a friend is is often better and shared meals like over table together with people around you in an inviting space. It's just good for people, and I think people get it. And that's why so many awesome places, like really good friends with the owners of recess and the laundry and of course. So Andy and Patrick from Dynamite and friends, people own the drip and even moments in Swannano. They're awesome people. We're just all really like we share ideas, all these types of collaboration over competition.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

It'll help you every time.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Truly. Uh it's kind of an we're an open book for each other. We just really believe I think we all just believe in what we're doing and what that can mean for a town that has these types of third places.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

So well, Swannanoa is is so much fun to go to now. I enjoy it. As a kid, we never went to Swannanoa. We we called it Swannonhare. I mean, we did. We actually called it that. And we just I don't I don't even know. I think we went to the hardware store and that was oh ace or yeah, we went to the ace. And and I think I think that's really the only reason we ever went to Swannanoa. I can't think of another reason, but but we never went. And and now it is a it is a really cool place to go. And I really am looking forward to the walkability part becoming more Black Mountain-like, because Black Mountain, you can walk anywhere and it's great. Not anywhere, but downtown scene is easy and it's gotten to where, you know, people laugh at me all the time. I'm like, I parked my car and I don't move it unless I go to Swannanoa or some other town and come back. And it yeah, and it might sit there for four days and they're like, Did you leave? I'm like, Yes, I left, but you know, right, but you don't have to, and and it's getting to where it's it's getting like that in Swananoa, and I love it. I'm excited about it. It's really fun. All right, Daniel, is there anything else I didn't ask you or something you want to shout out from your rooftops? Anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Hmm. I think, yeah, and I kind of spoke into this earlier. For so many years, we my wife and I would just joke, and just people in our church, like Swannanoa needs more just places, shared spaces. And we often talked about just like loneliness was a word that came up a lot for people in the town. And in my background in youth ministry, like working with teenagers. I'm just seeing the effects of loneliness on our kids. And you can blame whatever technology phones. I I think you should blame the hospital. There's a lot of other things, and and shared

Coffee Shops As Third Places

SPEAKER_00 32:05

spaces is they just look different these days. And we talked about it, just friends and church and wife and I, of like, man, like this town could use some more spaces like that. Somebody needs to do this. And we kept saying, somebody, somebody, somebody. And it was just such a weird light bulb moment when we were like, I guess we could do that too. Like, we never really processed that being possible. And I think it seems like more people are challenging that themselves. And it's really fun to see in just Swanano, like in Swanano specifically, people like somebody asking, I'm like, You should do this. And I'm going, like, what? I never thought about that. And then they do it. And I would just challenge anyone who's listening who has an idea like that or sees a need and is waiting for somebody else to do it. Maybe just walk into your bathroom, look in the mirror, and you might have found the person that's who could do it right now. And uh, it's gonna be probably harder than you expect because it, you know, most likely you're gonna need your backup plan that you don't think you need. But in the end, you can do it. And people are so excited about stuff that matters. And if you're finding a problem in your community and you think of a way to solve it, I think there's probably a hundred other people who are waiting for somebody to do that that are ready to rally around you. They just need somebody to kind of be the first to get it going.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Very cool. Cool. There's a sign on my wall in my house that says everyone told her she couldn't do it, and so she did. And that that's that's my that's where I go. It's like, come on, tell just tell me I can't do something. Watch. Watch this. So well, thank you for coming today. Thank you for everything you're doing in Swanano and making a difference with the culture, the community, the ministry, the people. It's great to go by there and just see it. Always, it's almost always full, but not there's never not a space for somebody to sit else to join them. So I uh I just hope people will um continue to shower y'all. It's a great place and it's really uh I I have lots of meetings there, so it's a good place for me too. But thank you very much for coming. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

Thanks, Cheryl.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Thanks for joining us on Exploring the Valley. Until next time, keep celebrating the pride of our community and discovering the magic of the mountains. In the meantime, you're free to move about the valley.