About the Us

If someone would have told me six years ago, I'd have gone from being a global missionary, to a husband, then to a father, and now to a coffee shop owner, I would have said "you're crazy” yet here I am.

Here, in the small town of Ozark, Arkansas I found something incredibly special. Growing up in the much larger city of Apple Valley, California, I found a kind-of refuge in the simplicity of small-town life. However, as the years of my residence progressed, I started to notice the deterioration of certain places and structures, I saw people leave town to bigger metropolitan areas, and I saw prospective businesses shut down.

For a time, it spun me into a stage of bereavement. I wondered, why? Did anyone else see the potential? We noticed that there was very little for the population to do, no place to just “hang-out” or do homework. No location to open up a book and simply relax. We came to the hard realization, that people were leaving, not because Ozark is a terrible place to live, but because there didn’t seem like much hope for a future here. Just one look at the downtown is enough to garner those particular sentiments.

That’s when my wife, Angelina, and I thought to go counter culture and open a coffee shop. Everyone needs to start somewhere and we figured, “Why not? We can fill that void! We can provide a location for peace, rest, and rejuvenation! We can give the people something to look forward to at the start of their day!”

We didn’t just stop there, however, we wanted our community to have the very best, to have the freedom to treat themselves to something a larger community like Bentonville or Fayetteville might have. With craft specialty coffee from a small batch roaster, fresh blended teas, and artisan-fresh pastries made in shop, we wished to reverse the feelings of dismay and replace it with hope.

Hope for a bright future for our small town. Hope in positive change. We want this business to succeed, but the coffeehouse is just the tip of the iceberg, our vision and our heart is to see the downtown completely transformed… And we want to be at the very center of that movement.

We want to see people free from worry that their building might be the next structure to collapse due to neglect and would, in turn, want to move in.  We want to see people have the freedom to open businesses in the square without the fear of failure and lack of customer base, because we’ll be a destination location, not just a place you have to pass through. And most of all, we want to see unity, all of us, young and old, gathering in a square we can be proud of, where from the sweat of our collective brows, we can say, we built this together.

I believe that we, as a community, can overcome our rocky present and look forward into our potential future with joy and expectation.

It’s said “A journey of a thousand miles, begins with one step”. 

 

Welcome to Simply Risen Coffeehouse, welcome to the first step. 

​