Waynesburg Coffee Company combining with Coach’s Cafe

Waynesburg Coffee Company opened its doors for the first time in August 2017, but approximately seven months later, the company is no more—at least the brand is.

Drew Johnson, co-owner of Waynesburg Coffee Company, announced on the company’s Facebook page last week that the shop would no longer be open in its current location. Customers were surprised and disheartened, thinking that the shop was closing down altogether, but that is not the case. Waynesburg Coffee Company is simply moving from its current location at 25 N. Morgan St. to combine with Coach’s Café at 78 W. High St.

“We just had two businesses, and it made sense to combine them,” said Johnson. “And a lot of people like the idea of us being on High Street a lot better, and its better for businesses in town.”

Johnson and his wife, Laura Johnson, purchased Coach’s Café in late February and began running operations there. The stores had opened only a month apart last year, and the Johnsons were long-time friends with former Coach’s Café Owner Matt Tedrow. Tedrow approached them to see if they would be interested in buying his shop, and Laura Johnson said it was easy to accept.

Now, Drew Johnson said it just makes more sense to combine the two restaurants.

“A lot of the items were the same at both shops,” he said. “The menus aren’t really changing too much on either end. It just made sense to put them together.”

Drew Johnson said that especially during breakfast the restaurants were serving essentially the same items—bacon and sausage sandwiches, mixed coffee drinks and other items.

This will make it easy to combine the menus. In fact, he said the majority of the new menu would be ready by this week. Still, the owners chose to keep the transition a secret until everything was completely moved and set up.

“For business reasons,” Johnson said. “We [were] trying to keep it quiet just so people don’t go over there before we’re ready.”

Now that the transition is complete, Drew Johnson said there will be more changes coming in the

future.

“We’re going to be rebranding to something different, but for now it’s staying Coach’s Café,” he said. “It will be named something different, but that’s a little ways down the road. We’re trying to think carefully about what to call it.”

In addition to a new brand, Drew Johnson said they hope to revisit the now-combined menu, to have an even greater selection for customers.

“We’re probably going to expand the calendar and make it a more full-service coffee bar,” he said. “And there is some new stuff to come on the coffee end of things. We just added a few new menu items fairly recently, and there will be some new smoothies and stuff with spring around the corner.”

Drew Johnson said that while the decision was made rather recently, the co-owners are moving forward with the merger without hesitation.

He holds that this is the most sensible decision for both businesses, and since they were only leasing the location on N. Morgan Street, it was an easy transition.

“There are just a lot of similar menu items, so it didn’t really make sense to do that in two locations and have two overheads,” he said.