Triple Moon Coffee Co.
Where: 1100 Central Ave., Middletown
Hours: 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday and Tuesday; 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; closed Sunday
Contact: triplemooncoffeeco@yahoo.com
Some dreams take longer than others to be realized.
For Heather Gibson, it took about 20 years. She remembers visiting a coffee shop in Tennessee about two decades ago and, after feeling “a sense of community,” she wanted to open a similar business back home in Middletown. Instead, she worked at a cabinet making business in Miamisburg, but never closed the doors on her aspirations.
She always was looking for the right property, the right time to start a downtown business.
Three years ago, when the building at 1100 Central Ave. was for lease, she considered contacting the owner, but wasn’t confident downtown could support a coffee shop.
“But every time I closed my eyes, this is what I saw,” she said. “That’s when I asked God, the universe, to show me a sign, to slap me in the face.”
A few days later, her business partner Michelle Tice was told she received a retirement check from AK Steel.
Welcome to the latte world, ladies.
On Friday, Triple Moon Coffee Co. opened at the corner of Central Avenue and Broad Street, in a location that has buried dreams of other business owners. But Gibson is confident Triple Moon can shine where others have been clouded. She believes students from Cincinnati State Middletown and local high schools, and downtown workers will patronize a coffee house that offers chicken and egg salad sandwiches, vegetable wraps and Italian subs, free WiFi and a conference room that seats 30
She calls it “a simple menu.”
Don’t call Triple Moon a coffee shop. Gibson prefers coffee house.
“When you’re here, you’re home,” said Gibson, 46, a 1987 Monroe High School graduate.
Gibson and Tice signed a three-year lease and have spent about $8,000 on renovations and $50,000 on equipment. Eventually, Gibson said, they’d like to open a drive-through off Broad Street, a move she estimates will triple sales.
As Gibson looks out her front window and sees other thriving downtown businesses — Murphy’s Landing, BeauVerre Riordan Stained Glass Studio and Pendleton Art Center — she sees a bright future. She said Middletown has a chance to be the next revitalized downtown.
“We have the opportunity to blow up,” she said. ‘This can be the ‘old Middletown’ again.”
Mallory Greenham, director of Downtown Middletown Inc., said the coffee shops fills gaps downtown. It occupies a space at one of downtown’s busiest intersections, gives college/high school students a place to study and provides another dining option for downtown visitors and employees.
The coffee house motto is “Good Vibes, Great Coffee,” and Gibson jokes that she’s a late-blooming hippy. She may eventually open an aroma shop in part of the building.
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