On Sept. 9, County Road Coffee lit up the bright neon “open” sign in its window to let the community know that it was ready to start taking orders once again—this time, no longer in the trailer owners Ashlyn and Heston Jordan have been making coffee out of for the past two and a half years. County Road Coffee is now settled in a non-moving home—it’s very own brick-and-mortar location at 706 East Scenic Rivers Boulevard. From trailer to restaurant, Ashlyn shared the journey and what the community can expect from the coffee shop in the future.
Sometimes, great things are in store for people that don’t expect them, and that’s exactly what happened to the Jordan family with County Road Coffee.
“We just always thought we’d be in a drive-through trailer,” shared Ashlyn. “But with the support of our community and God, we were able to move into a brick-and-mortar.”
The idea for County Road Coffee began in 2021. Ashlyn and husband, Heston, wanted to take a step-back from their traditional careers to spend more time together. Ashlyn used to work as a labor and delivery nurse at Phelps Health in Rolla, and Heston used to work for the state of Missouri in the land survey department; however, it wasn’t that the two didn’t love their jobs—they just knew they worked better together. After some consideration, they decided that coffee was a worthy avenue to pursue—back then, options for coffee were limited in the surrounding area, and there was a void to fill.
Ashlyn joked, “I was like, ‘what about coffee?’ and he was like, ‘I don’t even like coffee.’”
But Heston agreed to the idea. Little did they know that after the first month of opening the business in January of 2022, they would no longer be working in corporate jobs but working full-time in their coffee trailer, and that by 2024, Heston would be a coffee connoisseur.
The original concept was that Ashlyn and Heston would be selling coffee out of their camper, not a trailer, with the name “Happy Camper Coffee Company.” After the Jordan’s vision changed for the coffee shop, the initial concept was dropped in favor of “County Road Coffee”, to honor Heston’s childhood growing up on a county road. In fact, the original menu for the trailer featured drinks named after county roads within Rolla, Salem, and Edgar Springs. Both fortunately and unfortunately, there are now too many drinks on the menu to keep up with county road numbers.
Ashlyn shared that the shop prides itself on loving its community and providing excellent customer service to all. Taking the next step and becoming a brick-and-mortar restaurant was another way the Jordan’s sought to provide that excellent customer service. More and more often, Ashlyn was finding customers were requesting a place to sit-in, more breakfast options, or even more flavors—all of which they couldn’t offer within the trailer. There was a demand to grow. So, grow it did.
“It’s not about the coffee for us, it’s about the people—coffee is just the avenue in which we get to love our community,” Ashlyn said.
With the new building, the drive-through process is much quicker—taking inspiration from restaurants like Chick-Fill-A. Since the sit-in portion of the restaurant is not quite ready for the community, a worker will go outside to take orders from multiple cars at once to ensure maximum speed and efficiency, ensuring the restaurant can work on multiple orders and provide timely service to its clients. Ashlyn shared that the average time for orders has been between two and three minutes, depending on order size.
The offerings of the restaurant have expanded to include food items, such as baked goods, light lunch, and breakfast options. One such new item is the “ugly” biscuit, including a bacon cheddar ugly biscuit and a lemon blueberry ugly biscuit. It doesn’t look perfect, Ashlyn described, but it tastes amazing. She’s also begun experimenting with selling a variety of baked goods, like pumpkin mini-loafs or homemade oatmeal cream pies, which are usually sold-out by noon. Those that want to snag a tasty morning treat should make sure to arrive early.
Every month, the community can expect a list of specialty coffee drinks from County Road Coffee capitalizing on the changing season and all of its distinct flavor profiles. For September, those flavors include caramelized banana latte, oatmeal cookie latte, pistachio creme latte, butter pecan latte, and caramel pumpkin roll latte. For the upcoming month of October, Ashlyn shared the community can look forward to a specialty menu taking plenty of inspiration from pumpkins in all of their different forms. All the menu ideas come straight from Ashlyn, who does her research on what flavors pair well together, as well as going with her intuition to discover tasty surprises.
The community’s most common go-to drink is the caramel macchiato or mud puddle, which features caramel and chocolate. Ashlyn’s favorite drink on the menu is the hazelnut truffle, which includes white chocolate, coconut, and hazelnut—she describes it as light, refreshing, and delicious, featuring her favorite flavor to go in coffee, coconut.
“My husband and I, anytime we go anywhere, we try to find coffee shops and try new things and expose ourselves to as much as possible,” said Ashlyn. “We’re a small town, but we always try to bring that big city feel to our small town. We want to be able to offer the same things you can find in a city, but with the love and the compassion and the care that you’d find in a small hometown.”
With the big city in mind, two small businesses out of St. Louis have made themselves at home within the walls of the coffee shop. County Road Coffee has partnered with Goat Eats, a potato chip brand that is now served alongside the shop’s rotation of tasty sandwiches; furthermore, it’s been partnered with the same small business since the very beginning for its coffee beans, Park Avenue Coffee. With Park Avenue Coffee, beans are air roasted rather than drum roasted, which provides a more even roast to the beans by utilizing convection heat, resulting in less acidity in the flavor, described Ashlyn.
At the moment, the dine-in portion of the shop is not open, and probably will not be open for a while as the shop adjusts to its new building and stretches its legs.
“Being a small business, you have to take small steps as you grow,” Ashlyn stated. “That way, we don’t spread ourselves too thin. The most important thing is we want to make sure that we're continuing to give our customers the best coffee and the best customer service.”
When the sit-in portion is ready, Ashlyn described that the vision for the interior is a modern-industrial vibe, so both men and women feel comfortable entering for their morning cup of joe or morning treat. She hopes to provide space to accommodate people who want to work in a quiet space on homework, work on a computer, or provide space for moms to catch-up while their children play. When the sit-in portion opens in the future, the Jordan’s hope to be able to accommodate more variety on their menu, like hot teas and different brewing methods for coffee.
The staff for the trailer started out with only Ashlyn and Heston. Ashlyn would work from 5:30 a.m. to noon and then switch with Heston for the remaining shift. At first, they only had one daughter—now, they have three children, so more staff became necessary to keep watching the kids manageable and keep the trailer’s busy lunch rush from becoming overwhelming. The shop now employs 11 staff, including both Ashlyn and Heston.
Although the Salem trailer has been moved to the retirement home, the coffee shop will still be able to attend events with its Licking trailer. The Licking trailer might also pop-in to offer some caffeinated beverages at East Central or school districts from time-to-time, as well.
After their first week being open as a brick-and-mortar, Ashlyn shared that it was one of the biggest weeks for County Road Coffee to date.
Ashlyn encourages the community to stay tuned and follow County Road Coffee on Facebook for all the latest updates on the shop and its tasty creations, https://www.facebook.com/countyroadcoffee.
