Uprooted and replanted
Bean Tree Café moves to larger location and menu to better serve its customers
After seeing Liberty University students standing on a sidewalk waiting for their bus to come to The VUE at Cornerstone in the middle of January, Josh Allen and Keith Johnson decided to do something about what they witnessed.
SHOP — Several small businesses have opened at Cornerstone alongside the Bean Tree Café. Photo credit: Amber Tiller
“(We said to ourselves), ‘They need a coffee shop,’” Allen, co-owner of Bean Tree Café, said. “They need a place to come hang out.”
Come June 2014, the Bean Tree Café was up and running, nestled between the apartment buildings and businesses of Cornerstone.
After more than two years, they moved to a larger location off Greenview Drive among the Lofts, 55 new “luxury apartments” according to Allen.
But the Bean Tree Café’s shop space was not designed for them.
According to Keith Johnson, the location was a frozen yogurt shop for three months.
“We get 50 people in (the old location,) it (was) really hard,” Keith Johnson said.
“But in a space that’s designed for events, it’ll make a lot more sense. That’s the main difference. Yea, it’s expensive and stressful, but we’re in it to serve the best experience we can, and when the opportunity became available — we took the plunge. … Yea, (the old space was) nice and quaint and it serve(d) a purpose but it (was) not the best that it could be.”
The new space, though, is much larger with more seating, and the Bean Tree Café is expanding as well — within their menu.
New drink menu items such as the cold brew float as well as other food options such as the “s’mores kit” have been added to the menu at the new location.
But the overall goal is still the same even in a bigger shop, according to general manager, Dawn Johnson — Keith Johnson’s mother.
“My goal is a home away from home, a place where you feel comfortable enough to meet with family and friends, develop relationships, pursue relationships, enrich relationships,” Dawn Johnson said.
Allen said he wants the Cornerstone community to flourish as well.
“We want it to become a destination place,” Allen said. “The kids love it, but we want them (to have) everything that they need here — for them to hang out, to shop, to eat, (to have) events (and) that type of thing.”
In addition to co-owning the Bean Tree Café, Keith Johnson and Allen also served as the property managers of Cornerstone since 2012 through their business Priority One Properties.
QUAINT — The Bean Tree Café offers both beverages and food, as well as an open meeting area designed for groups to gather in. Photo credit: Amber Tiller
The pair said additions to Cornerstone included the Lofts as well as new businesses such as a women’s clothing store called Woven Devotion, Cornerstone Fitness and Priority One Property’s office.
Allen compared Cornerstone to another property they work with, Wyndhurst, a community-based apartment center located in the Lynchburg area.
“With Wyndhurst, we tried to do one better over here,” Allen said. “Wyndhurst is saturated a little bit with commercial spaces, and then over here in Cornerstone we tried to focus on kind of like a non(competitive) or limited commercial spaces, so that it wasn’t oversaturated and that it gives a better shot to the small business owner to survive.”
For more information about the Bean Tree Café, go to beantreecafe.com, and check out vuecommunities.com/cornerstone for more about Cornerstone.
TILLER is the social media manager.