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every week. It helps me be customer-centered, and it helps my business try to be as friendly as we can. Without [customers], we don't have coffee, we don't have a shop. They drive everything." Now you're thinking, "Wait, we're talking about Arkansas, right?!" Yes, and what's more, Andrea says the cafés, and the coffee culture surrounding them, are thriving not in spite of where they're located, but because of it—and, thankfully, they aren't just one- horse towns. "We're in a really special part of Arkansas, among four or five cities that make up a population of about 500,000 people. It's small, but also not-small at the same time: We're not tiny and isolated," says Andrea. "This area is the headquarters of Walmart, and they require everyone who does business with them to have an office within 25 miles. Because of that, there are a lot of people who are transplants, or who are here for a few years. The University of Arkansas is also here, so there's kind of an intellectual community. Really, the time and the community was really prime for what we are doing. I think people both generally and here are interested in why things taste the way they do, and how they are made." As far as learning how things are made, Onyx is uniquely positioned to show its customers exactly how their daily coffee comes to be, as the shop utilizes brewing equipment which puts the coffee–and the customer's experience with that coffee—front and center. An undercounter Modbar opens up the espres- so station, and Seraphim brewers by Wilbur Curtis eliminate the mystery around batch-brewing. (Are you rethinking your notions of Arkansas yet? Good.) "When we reopened [as Onyx, with a Modbar], we had a customer I had made lattes for for like 10 years come in, and she could see me making espres- so," Andrea remembers. "She was like, 'What is that?" and I remember being really shocked and really excited, and I said, 'This is what goes into your drink,' and she was like, 'Oh wow, cool!' I just thought that was amazing." For many dedicated specialty-coffee professionals, it's too easy to put the cart before the horse, so to speak: Does your customer actually know what goes into his drink every day? Can the folks who live in your community afford what you're selling? Would your mother feel comfortable walking into your café and ordering—well, something other than coffee, in Andrea's case. "My mother actually hates coffee, but when she comes to the shop, she says, 'Can I order a hot choc- olate?' My baristas say, 'You can order whatever you want!'" Andrea laughs. "We were driving to Nashville a couple years ago, and we stopped at Barista Parlor. We were waiting in line, so I prepped her: 'Let me order for you.' So we got up to the front, and she was like, 'This girl here knows coffee and loves coffee, so don't mess anything up.' It was really embarrassing, but really sweet." Andrea and Jon are just as dedicated to making their moms happy as they are the local community at large, and Andrea loves owning a spot where all types of people can come together over cups of what- ever they like—and whatever they can afford. "The way we set our menu is that we have some things that are really inexpensive, and then some things that are really off-the-charts pricey. For instance, our 12-ounce batch brew is $2, which I think is really inexpensive. If you want to come in real quick and get a coffee to go, it's $2, no big deal. If you want a Gesha pourover, we've also got that," she says. "I'd rather someone come in and feel like we're acces- sible, and that our prices and menu are friendly. That person might ask a lot of questions, and might even- tually get interested in pourover and buy a bag of retail coffee, but not if they walk in and are shocked by high prices the first time. "Our customers are so many different kinds of people," she continues. "We have a bunch of regulars who are mechanics, we have lawyers, professors, col- lege students, other entrepreneurial types of people. In our Fayetteville shop, we have a big communal table, and every morning there are a couple car mechanics and a big lawyer from Walmart and a pro- fessor from the U.—just hanging out with each other, and they have for years." Andrea knows the folks she serves pretty well— which makes sense, considering that she's lived in the community Onyx serves for her entire life. "I was born in Springdale, and I live there now. I've never lived outside Arkansas: I've actually lived within a two-mile radius of where I was born my whole life. I felt like I always wanted to move away, but I love this area, and I went to school here, and my family's here. I think everybody in their late teens and early 20s has wanderlust going on, but I love this area," she says. "This is going to sound weird, but I think that everywhere is basically the same. You're always looking for a family, and a com- munity, and where you want to live, and I have that 67 www.baristamagazine.com