Former downtown Bentonville gas station turns coffee shop

BENTONVILLE -- What was once a downtown gas station is now the headquarters of a coffee company.

Heroes Coffee Company transformed the former E-Z Mart into a cafe and roastery on the northeast corner of Southwest Eighth and Southwest A streets. It sits on the southern end of the Arts District where city officials expect to see more development after the Eighth Street widening project is complete in a few years.

Photo by Spencer Tirey
Amy Ferguson, owner of Heroes Coffee Co., works Tuesday on getting the new location setup for it’s Friday opening at Eighth and Southwest A streets in Bentonville. The company is renovating what used to be an E-Z Mart fuel station.

Heroes' doors opened at its new location at 6 a.m. Friday.

"From a business perspective, it's a great location," said Brian Bahr, Bentonville's interim community and economic development director.

"We always knew it would be redeveloped," he said, explaining it's more typical for old gas stations to be demolished and something new built in their place. "It's a great reuse of the property."

Tim and Amy Ferguson and a few other couples founded the company as Oaxacafe in Springfield, Mo., in 2003 to support a missionary's work in southern Mexico. It was turned over to the missionary for a period of time who then asked the Fergusons to buy it in 2009.

The couple did and rebranded it to Heroes Coffee as well as expanded its vision to support local everyday heroes -- such as military service people, veterans, public safety workers or social-minded organizations -- at each of its five locations: three in Missouri, one in Kansas and now one in Arkansas.

"We're not so quite focused on Mexico anymore," Amy Ferguson said. "We want to be involved in our local communities."

Each shop selects a local hero to partner with. That partnership will operate based on the need of the hero, whether it's advertising for them, providing coffee at events or helping financial in various kinds of ways, she said.

"There's lots of different things that we do," Amy Ferguson said.

The shop hasn't selected a Bentonville hero yet.

The Fergusons moved to Bentonville with their three sons four years ago. Amy Ferguson ran the Springfield-based business remotely until they found their downtown location.

The Springfield location has since closed. The Bentonville cafe will serve as the company's headquarters and includes a roastery where beans for its wholesale side of the business will be roasted. A large glass window between the cafe and roastery gives customers a close view of the roasting and packaging process.

"You can see behind the scenes. We're very much on display," Amy said.

Friends Craig Ferguson and Wayne Whitney visited the business Friday and sat at an outside table while sipping their freshly made brews.

Whitney said they watched the work being done on the building over the last few months and stopped by after noticing the open signs today.

Ferguson said he liked the business' way of giving back to the community by supporting a local hero.

The coffee shop is also in the growing downtown Arts District. The district has seen other development come online in the past couple of years including Crepes Poulette, The Forge restaurant, First National Bank, and The Exchange, a collaborative workspace.

A movie theater and multi-use building are being constructed in the district. The Thaden School, an independent school serving grades sixth through 12th, will be just southeast of the Arts District.

Wal-Mart's Home Office is a few blocks to the west on Southwest Eighth Street

Widening Eighth Street has the potential to impact businesses along that corridor while work is underway, but the final outcome should benefit them, Bahr said, citing the widening of Southwest Regional Airport Boulevard.

There was a commercial strip at 1001 S.W. Regional Airport Blvd. that was built and sat empty while the road work was being done for the last two and a half years. Work was completely about four months ago, and the commercial strip is at full occupancy, he said.

Workers are moving utilities on several sections of Eighth Street, but is not yet in front of Heroes Coffee.

Dennis Birge, transportation engineer, said work at the intersection of Southwest Eighth and Southwest A streets will begin Tuesday. Southwest Eighth Street from Southwest B Street to South Main Street will be closed for about 30 days.

Moving utilities is scheduled to be completed around the middle of next year. Road construction is expected to take two years after that, Birge wrote in an email.

"Construction contractors that close portions of 8th Street will be required to communicate with the affected businesses to let them know what route they need to take for access," he wrote.

Amy Ferguson said she's not too worried about the road project.

"I don't know exactly what it's going to look like," she said. "The thing that is nice for us is that we're not wholly dependent on a coffee shop. We have our wholesale business that will pretty much see us through if we have some hiccups with construction (of Eighth Street)," she said

NW News on 09/02/2017