Patron and township Trustee Shannon Hartkemeyer said Coffee Cup Overflowing at 6544 Winford Ave. is one of the township’s “hidden gems.”
“It’s so much more than just a coffee shop,” said Hartkemeyer. “It’s such a bright spot of positivity. There’s so much in the world that’s negative. The world needs more positive things like this.”
Though Payne says she is not operating the shop to make money, she does want it to be self-sustaining to continue to be a place for the community whether it’s a group of women playing the dice game Bunco, or someone working on a laptop.
A loyal customer base has developed, Payne said, through many of her shop's programs, events and ministries. There's Worship Night on the last Friday of every month, Toddler Story Time every second and fourth Wednesday morning of the month, and beginning in January a Lego Club will launch for older kids on the first and third Wednesdays.
There are also the events, such as fundraisers for local families in need and community groups or food and toy drives for the holidays. And she's helping other businesses, including subletting space to Jojo's Cupcakes.
But growth has been a struggle, Payne said. The business is being supported, in part, by her husband’s income.
“We’re getting closer (to being self-sufficient), but it’s a struggle from month to month,” she said.
She's working with a non-profit, Self-Sustaining Enterprises in Mason, to get to self-sustainability, and to the point where she can pay it forward.
“We would like to be able to give back to the community,” Payne said.
Eventually, she wants give a percentage of Coffee Cup Overflowing's profits to The Shepherd's Crook, a West Chester Twp. organization that finds adoptive families for kids with disabilities.
While the location is something she attests is the right spot for her, it is a hurdle, she admitted. Before she opened, a Columbus-based coffee roaster wouldn’t work with her because of the lack of roadside visibility.
Grassroots marketing, however, mostly by word of mouth and the store's Facebook page, has helped because she said, "Once people come, usually they love it."
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