Hope Nichols, daughter of owners Ben and Sydney Nichols, reflected on what her journey has been like as a proud member of her family’s business, The Bean.
This unique coffee shop is located in Auburn, making it easily accessible for college students, families and other community members to enjoy coffee, tea and their famous cinnamon rolls.
However, opening a coffee shop was not the original plan for the Nichols family. Before The Bean began operations in 2015, the family owned a vintage clothing store in Downtown Auburn for a few years, but soon realized that was not the market for them.
When deciding on a different business to open in the Auburn area, Nichols wanted a place that could feel more relational and close-knit. They wanted to prioritize two things when opening the new business. Number one, investing in the community, and number two, getting to know college students and the community better.
“At the time, there were only a handful of local coffee shops here, and so I told my parents we need to open [one],” Nichols said.
Thus, The Bean was born in 2015. The original location was in Downtown Auburn location, but four years later in 2019, they moved to their current location just down the road on North Dean Road.
“We wanted to feel like you were walking into your grandma's house,” Nichols said.
As previous vintage clothing store owners, they wanted to keep the cozy and welcoming feeling inside of their coffee shop.
To achieve this feeling, they collected vintage furniture from all around the southeast from various places like Facebook Marketplace, estate sales and antique malls. To create a family-friendly environment, they purchased a variety of board games as well.
“We also wanted to be a place where either you can come and have a coffee date, or you can meet with a friend, but you also have big enough tables and enough space where you can study,” Nichols said.
Their menu contains a wide variety of options from cold brew, chai lattes, hot chocolate, smoothies and frappes as drink options to casserole, toast, pastries and waffles for food options.
“We've tried to diversify our menus, that way we have something for everyone. Whether you're bringing your little kids and you don't want them to have caffeine, we have drink options for them,” Nichols said.
When making specialty drinks like "The Wonder" or "Blue Bodda Getta," The Bean prioritizes teaching employees to be a helpful hand to all customers and instills quality customer service values.
“Especially in the food industry, it's easy to be so focused on the job and focused on making the next thing, you actually miss the opportunity to have fun and be with that person,” Nichols said.
Another way the small business is looking to interact positively with community members is by hosting various events on-site. They've hosted baby showers, engagement showers and Panhellenic events, to celebrate all stages in life in the coffee shop.
Something unique that customers might not know about The Bean is that their coffee and tea are fair trade based. They seek to benefit farmers from Rwanda who work in the coffee fields, providing them a fair and livable wage for every coffee cup ordered.
When deciding where to purchase coffee, the Nichols family wanted to make sure they were doing it as sustainably and ethically as possible.
“Whenever you look at coffee, it's one of the lading industries for exploiting workers. And so we said we're not going to give our money to a roaster that's getting beans from a company that's doing that,” Nichols said.
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