New coffee shop hopes to succeed while making community friends

A basic coffee at Between Friends Coffeeshop & Cafe is $1.61 including tax.

It’s a sizeable cup; not skimpy.

Paying $3 total adds unlimited refills, and a flavor shot is 50 cents more.

Owner-operators and best friends Victoria Hawkins and Jaimie Miller opened Aug. 1 with their coffees, baked goods and lunch items. They already had a good following from buzz on social media and among friends of Bare Bulb Coffee, which closed last year.

Between Friends sits at 1080 Ga. 96, Suite 100, catty-corner from the old Bare Bulb Coffee location — just across the intersection of Ga. 96 and Lake Joy Road on the corner next to a convenience store.

Hawkins and Miller said the coffee shops have a connection of sorts.

“Bare Bulb did a lot of amazing things, and we have kind of a link to them,” Hawkins said. “They were community-oriented, and we are definitely community-oriented. We’ll also be involved in art, music, open mic nights and a lot of the things they were. A lot of groups that met formally and informally there are going to be coming here now. We’re carrying on a lot of their traditions. In fact, Jaimie and I both spent a lot of time at Bare Bulb ourselves. In the days it was winding down, we talked about opening our own shop. A lot of the equipment from there is here now.”

When Bare Bulb closed, Miller said the two knew there was a need and that the time was right.

“We’re a lot like Bare Bulb, but we’re different,” she said. “They were a ministry-based, nonprofit business but we’re a flat-out business. Victoria and I are Christians, but this a business and we’re business-focused. But we’re a real friendly, community-oriented, fun business with really good coffee.”

Hawkins said opening the café was a labor of love between the two and among family and friends. She said they did as much of the work themselves getting ready to open with long days and nights painting, decorating and creating signature coffees and treats.

A literature major in college, Miller laughed and said she used her degree to help create the menu: an expansive list of coffees carrying authors’ names.

Order an Edgar Allen Poe and you get a black coffee with a shot of espresso. Call out Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s name and expect a brown sugar latte. Lewis Carrol equals a cotton candy delight, Shelley is chamomile tea and T.S. Elliot is Earl Gray. The list goes on.

Breakfast and lunch items are less highbrow; they are what they are, Miller said. She said the favorite bakery treat by far is a maple pecan scone, which reflects her time in England as an Air Force brat and 12 years in the South after her parents retired to Warner Robins.

“We’ve been best friends for a year, at least,” Miller said. “We were acquaintances before that but got really close a year ago when we were paired to lead a middle school small group at Southside Baptist Church. I’d known the kids since they were little but Victoria was new as a leader and we started spending a lot of time together figuring out how we were going to handle things. Even after working together on all this and the stress of opening a business — we’re still good.”

Miller said Hawkins tends to man the counter while she spends a lot of time in the kitchen. But she credits Hawkins with making the maple pecan scones every day, which sell out even when they do double batches.

Although the two said succeeding in business is paramount and that right now they’re swamped taking care of cooking and customer service chores all by themselves, they hope customers find Between Friends a place for great treats and the feeling that they, too, are among best friends.

“We really try to greet everyone with a smile and a hello,” Hawkins said. “And I mean that’s for everyone and not just this group or that group. I really believe the heart of this place is love — love for family, love for friends, love for neighbors. That’s our core. We want to offer that little bit of attention everybody is looking for and a sense of ‘my story is important’ regardless of who they are or what their story is.”

Miller said because of their commitment to family, including their own, starting out they’re keeping hours to 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays and 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturdays. They’re closed Sundays.

“I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family, but nothing to do with the food industry,” Hawkins said. “We really are newbies learning as we go but we’re working hard. The food inspector told us nobody passes inspection on their first try but we took that as a personal goal to meet. We asked the questions and did the work and we did it, we passed on our first go ‘round.”

Miller said they’re at the right place at the right time—except for the massive construction going on out on Ga. 96.

“They said they’ll be done by the fall — we’ll see,” she said. “That makes it a little crazy out there but we’re in a great spot. The new stadium is opening soon down the road and we can’t wait until we have crowds in after the games. This spot is growing tremendously and wow — just look around: here we are right in the middle of great restaurants, stores, a Pilates studio, all kinds of cool things. Years from now we want to say, ‘Yeah, we’re part this. This is our community. We’re a successful business where people are noticed and not just looked at as another dollar.’ ”

Hawkins said Between Friends’ coffee beans are organic, fairly traded and grown in Guatemala. She said they’re provided by Beth Cleveland of Cleveland Organics in Fort Valley.

She said she hopes customers will be talking among friends while at the shop, but said there’s also the option to peruse a growing library that includes like children’s books, Neruda’s poetry and some of her own favorite Sherlock Holmes tales.

But be careful: if you come across a volume of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and call out author Harper Lee’s name, someone might bring you an Oreo frappe.

This story was originally published August 7, 2016 at 4:26 PM with the headline "New coffee shop hopes to succeed while making community friends."