Teen-led coffee shop 'patched together' by community and family

The Girls Coffee House, a new business serving up coffee and quesadillas half a mile uphill from the Isotopes Park, just concluded one month of business, with two teenage sisters at the helm.

Arya and Kaia Goold, 19 and 18, respectively, launched the venture at 915 Yale SE on March 1. The two are co-owners with their parents, Kory and Arin Goold, who also own the dispensary and education center next door, Mama and the Girls.

“We kind of watched our parents grow the dispensary. ... (It) was very interesting to get a glimpse into that, the business world,” Arya Goold said. “We never really expected that we would run a business because it always feels like an impossible task.”

The family started toying with the idea of a coffee shop about a year ago, as they anticipated the closure of a kava bar that once filled the space. When the kava bar left, the family jumped at the opportunity.

Arya and Kaia Goold run the day-to-day operations of the business, while their parents handle the backend operations and assist in the shop when needed.

The shop, open everyday from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., offers corn or flour quesadillas with available add-ins of ham, green chile and extra salsa. The shop also offers sodas, teas and coffees, which the sisters make using a compact, cylinder AeroPress coffee maker. It involves manually forcing the water through the coffee and a thin paper filter.

Prices at the shop range from $2.50 to $6, with the average customer spending between $5 and $10, the Goold sisters said.

The sisters are trying to ensure customers can “use the cash in your pocket” when visiting their shop, said Arya Goold.

“You don’t have to plan how much you have when you come here,” Kaia Goold added.

Looking back on how the business came together, the sisters said thriftiness and community were key factors. Family members pitched in where they could, including plants from their grandmother and a salsa recipe from their grandfather.

The girls acquired almost all of the shop’s furniture, including small sofas, wooden chairs and coffee tables, from Facebook Marketplace. Other pieces were either left behind from the kava bar or donated by customers.

The sisters also painted the walls themselves, including a mural by Kaia Goold, and brought in their own family board games.

“It’s a very patched together community project,” Kaia Goold said.

Some of the biggest challenges the teen owners said they learned to navigate included keeping up with inventory and the rising costs of supplies. The girls said community input, as well as support from their parents, has been helpful in figuring out what works and what doesn’t.

One thing the community overwhelmingly asked for — which the shop recently delivered — is chai tea and syrups. Kaia Goold said next on the list of expansions are breakfast and dessert quesadilla options.

She also said her family has been in talks with a local teen baker about partnering up.

“I think it would be really awesome, the idea of teens supporting teens,” Kaia Goold said. “I think it’s very important for everybody to support local, but especially local to support local.”

Arya Goold said the community’s response to the shop has been “very positive.” One regular, Kaia Goold added, approached her recently and said they couldn’t resist coming back to the shop again and again.

“I love being a place where people enjoy to be at,” Kaia Goold said.

Arya Goold, a college student, said she aims to make The Girls Coffee House a “comforting” place where students want to come to study at for awhile. The siblings are hoping to expand the shop’s hours soon to accommodate more students’ schedules.

The young owners said they hope the venture inspires other young entrepreneurs to chase their business aspirations as well.

“It’s definitely harder than I thought it was going to be, but it’s also really exciting and fun,” Kaia Goold said, adding that she would tell other teens with business dreams to “just go for it.”