By Lindsay Doty
Bold. Medium-to-dark roast. Earthy flavor with a hint of smoke. And a splash of sugar.
It’s the ideal blend for Stephanie Yant. The Avon native has a passion for coffee and is pursuing her longtime dream of having her own shop.
This spring, she and her husband Jordan are gearing up for the opening of Cabin Coffee at the corner of U.S. 36 and old 36 in Avon. The Cabin Coffee Co. is an Iowa-based franchise known for its on-site roasting and fresh gourmet blends.
“We are a coffee roaster. So a lot of the other chains around here they might have great coffee, but they don’t maybe roast it fresh in- house,” explains franchise owner Stephanie Yant, comparing it to the perks of freshly-baked bread. “You can really taste it. The aroma is different. The taste is different.”
Yant, 31, comes to the franchise with 13 years of food service experience. She’s worked at Arby’s, Taco John’s and spent eight years as general manager at Chick-fil-A where she met her husband — and got a rep for being a stickler with the coffee pot.
“They used to call me the coffee master because I was really picky about making people scrub out the coffee pots,” she recalls laughing.
Yant has also worked for an IT company and a pharmaceutical business where she supervised the storage of medical specimens (she swears it’s not as gross as it sounds).
“It was very different, but honestly everything I’ve done is taking care of people,” she says.
Cabin Coffee Co. has 17 other locations throughout the U.S. including one in Goshen. This will be a first for the Indianapolis region. In addition to daily customers, the shop will also sell its beans and have “bean accounts” for area businesses to buy and roast their own.
“We hope to draw on the Avon and Danville areas,” she said. As they move closer to their target opening of spring 2019, Stephanie and Jordan Yant are busy getting the building ready. The former custard shop has been transformed into what now looks like an upscale cabin.
“I definitely love the atmosphere of people just coming in here and being here for hours and having life-changing conversations so that’s pretty cool to be a part of,” she says.
The shop will have a patio for nice days and a toddler zone for kids to play while parents enjoy their coffee or snacks.
Yant hopes the shop will be the perfect blend for Hendricks County.
Cabin Coffee Co. will be located at 5530 E. U.S. 36, Avon.
