Biz Buzz: Rigby couple opens coffee shop to make friends and meet new people
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Do you want to know what’s happening in the eastern Idaho business scene? We’ve got you covered. Here is a rundown of this week’s business news across the valley.
BIZ BUZZ
RIGBY
New business a popular spot to get a cup of coffee and meet new people
RIGBY – When Cory and Christina Christiaens moved to Rigby in 2019, they couldn’t believe how many people showed up to help move furniture and welcome them to the community.
That experience was highly influential in their decision to open a coffee and smoothie shop earlier this year.
“We thought, ‘How could we meet more people and facilitate people meeting people?’ A lot of people get to know each other over a cup of coffee … or a cool (drink) during the hot summer. We thought about a coffee shop, and that way we could meet more people,” Cory tells EastIdahoNews.com.
Cafe et Amour, which is French for “coffee and love,” opened Monday at its new location at 180 West Main St. next to Majestic Art Framing in Rigby. The menu includes Red Bull spritzers, a popular drink in the Pacific Northwest where the Christiaens are from that adds ice and fruit to a Red Bull energy drink. They also offer baked goods, such as cookies, muffins and other snacks.
The business operates out of a small trailer and had previously opened in June at Rigby South Park near the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. Over the last several months, Cory says they’ve been much busier than anticipated.
“It’s been great, especially since we added smoothies. The summer got hot (early on), so that got us started. It quickly spread through word of mouth, and we’ve steadily built up more regular (customers), saying, ‘I heard about you from so-and-so,’ or ‘I saw you guys on Facebook,'” says Cory.
On Monday, Christina says they had more people visit them at their new location than “any Monday at the fairgrounds.”
As they started looking for a permanent location, the Christiaens visited with many business owners in town about setting up shop. The owners of Majestic were “ecstatic” about it.
“Their names are Hubert and Darci Barlow. They were like, ‘Yeah absolutely. Let’s do it! We want something there!’ They’ve been so accommodating and super supportive of us,” Cory says.
Prior to moving to Rigby, the Christiaens had been living near Seattle. Cory graduated from college in 2019 after getting out of the Navy. They needed a bigger house for their four kids but the housing market is “crazy expensive” there, Cory says. He has family in Bozeman, Montana, and wanted to be closer to them but didn’t want to live there because of the weather.
One of his old Navy buddies, who lives in Ammon, spoke highly of the area. Figuring eastern Idaho was a good halfway point between Seattle and Bozeman, they initially started looking for houses in Idaho Falls before ultimately finding a place in Rigby.
“We walked in, and it was like, ‘Yep, this is it. We don’t need to look anymore,'” Cory says of their house in Rigby.
Many of the people who helped them move in were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Though the Christiaens are not members of the faith, they admired how tight-knit of a community it was and opened the coffee shop so they could get to know people in their own way.
“We started jibber-jabbering about it a while ago and we decided about six months ago to pull the trigger,” Cory explains. “We started looking for a trailer and found this one that was custom-built. It was great for what we wanted.”
Another Navy buddy, Emmanuel Butler, owns a coffee company in Ontario, California, called Special Needz Coffee. Cory says Butler helped lay the groundwork for their vision by providing coffee beans for Cafe et Amour.
The couple is open to the idea of opening a storefront someday, but for now, they’re enjoying serving customers and meeting new people every day.
Cafe et Amour is open 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Visit the Facebook page to learn more.
BIZ BITS
Local business ranked among the nation’s 5,000 fastest-growing companies
IDAHO FALLS – Stukent, a digital courseware provider that works to keep textbooks current in the world of academia and provide real-world experiences to the classroom, is ranked No. 1,649 on the Inc. 5000.
RELATED | Outdated textbooks were a problem for him, so he did something about it
The Inc. 5000 is a prestigious ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies, providing a unique look at some of the most successful small businesses in America. Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia and many other well-known brands gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.
“I couldn’t be more excited to make the Inc. 5000 list for the fourth year in a row,” Founder and CEO Stuart Draper says in a news release. “What this award means to me is that, as a company, together with our customers, we are fulfilling our mission to help educators help students help the world! I can’t thank our customers, team members, and partners enough for helping us achieve this milestone four times.”
The full list of companies who made the list, along with profiles and an interactive database, can be found here.
SMALL BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT
IDAHO FALLS
Cryptocurrency mining company removes barriers and simplifies the process for customers
IDAHO FALLS – Cryptocurrency has become an increasingly popular investment option in the last several years.
A local company capitalizes on this trend by mining for it.
Braxton Ball is the operations manager and co-owner of T-Ball Miners, a company that has been hosting miners for the last six years in an Idaho Falls warehouse. The warehouse houses a large network of computers that process cryptocurrency transactions around the world.
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