Sara Coleman waits for Koffee with a Kause owner, Jared Voth, to serve up her afternoon coffee in downtown Benton at the corner of Main Street and Conway Street.
Koffee with a Kause has been around for around two years now. It’s a little shack at the edge of the parking lot in Bryant Plaza off the Interstate 30 South Frontage Road. They’ve been serving up coffee and smoothies and other occasional items day after day, all while giving a portion of the proceeds to a different designated charity each month. And now they do it more.
It is my belief that the Lord put it on owner Jared Voth’s agenda to open another location in downtown Benton because I will be moving nearby soon and I need good coffee to survive. However, the Lord didn’t tell Jared to tell me that he was opening a new location and I had to find out through Russell Steed, AKA the shoeshine guy at The Shine-ing. Russell’s storefront is located on Sevier Street a couple of blocks away from the new “Koffee,” so I guess that makes sense he knew before I did. That didn’t keep him from rubbing it in.
So anywaaaaay, I naturally had to make a “business trip” to do some investigative reporting on the new location. Sure enough, there was Jared inside a little trailer with his logo all over it, just waiting to take my order.
He leaned on the edge of the little service window to give me the scoop, “I’ve had this trailer since October, and I use it to do events, so it was easy to use it here until we get in the building,” Jared said.
Here’s the Bryant location of Koffee with a Kause. I took this picture around Thanksgiving, so the snowflakes were in season then. Gingerbread and peppermint flavorings were in season too! Mmmm…
He will be setting up shop inside the old service station there sometime around June. He said that later on, there is the possibility of having food truck days there on the lot. There’s plenty of room.
The downtown Benton area is on the cusp of some great things that are sure to revitalize the area – yes even at night. There is already the beautiful historic Saline County Courthouse and the quaint little Owens-Mooney Park, but the giant mural has been added on South Street, and soon there will be a farmers market pavilion near that. And… there are folks working into the wee hours as we speak to open an Italian restaurant on Market Street. I’ll have more info on that as I get it, but there are whispers that they’ll be open for supper. That’s new for downtown restaurants.
There are also two new stores on South Street. Stated Apparel moved from their building on the Interstate and have been open for a few months. Arkansas Woven has a sign up and will be opening shortly.
Thanks to ACDI buying the old Harvest Foods lot (on Main Street across from Smith Caldwell Drugstore) and building a striking new office building, there will soon be lots more people working downtown. People who need to eat and shop. That reminds me, there’s also Cross Street Art Gallery next to ACDI that’s only a few months old. You should definitely visit them to see some wonderful, amazing, delightful art. I could go on all day, but I’ll stop right there. For now.