The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAI T SBURG - One's a cow girl. One's a mother of two. One's a chef. One's a graduate wine maker. One's a journalist.

Coppei Coffee's core team couldn't be more different or their paths to the town's new culinary crossroads more varied.

Yet they have more than a few things in common when it comes to their vision and passion for Waitsburg's soon-to-open coffee house on Main Street.

"I want it to be a place where you can come to soak in and enjoy the morning," said Marc Bru, Coppei Coffee's general manager. "The aroma and atmosphere in here alone will be pleasant and eye-opening."

Without exception, the five members of the team said they want the coffee shop to offer a great experience: a place to enjoy rich gourmet coffee from around the world, homemade pastries, lunch and ice cream; a place to casually meet friends and neighbors; and above all a place to use as a second living room and linger as long as the mood strikes you.

"Having a meeting place is a really big thing," said Lindsey Thomas, the youngest member of the team. "All my friends say 'gosh, I wish we had a coffee shop in Waitsburg.' "

Now it will.

Slated to open its doors in July, Coppei Coffee is wrapping up its interior renovations of 137 and in the back portion of 139 Main Street, installing equipment and finalizing the menu.

Before long, the old facade at 137 Main next to the gym will come off as the last part of the buildings' metamorphosis and the light will stream in to a red-brick cafe and some of the antique machines that once helped produce a newspaper.

And just as importantly, the staff is on board behind the scenes to plan, train and prepare for a business that will be open mornings and afternoons for much of the seven-day week, and some weekend nights for live music and entertainment.

As the latest installment in the Times' series about "The Making Of A Coffee Shop," it's time to focus on the people who will help ease you into your Waitsburg day.

Marc Bru Age: 31 Coppei (Birthplace): John Day, Oregon Favorite coffee drink: Dry cappuccino

Marc Bru, Coppei Coffee's general manager, grew up in Portland with roots in the Oregon country. Born of a Scots Irish mother and a French East Indian father, he graduated from Lake Oswego High School in 1997.

He was drawn to lithography and printing at first, beginning his career as an apprentice at Bridgetown Printing Co., in Portland, where he worked his way up from clerk in the shipping department to press operator.

After half a decade at Bridgeport, he drifted south and landed on a hippie farm in Humbolt County, California, where he took care of horses and lived out of his 1996 Ford Probe, footloose and "homeless" by choice.

He came back to the Portland area in 2005 and worked at a dog kennel until he met and married Sara in 2006 and moved to College Place, where she completed her Master's in Social Work and he went to work at His Garden bakery as a baker.

"I've stayed in the culinary field ever since and never really looked back," Bru said. "I love to provide food for people and make them happy."

Once a serious poker player, Coppei Coffee's head chef takes the analytical approach to recipes, tweaks them and makes them better.

He helped start up Rare Finds, an organic foods gift store and restaurant in Walla Walla before joining forces with Graze Catering to make Panini's for the Saturday farmers' market.

Then, he was called up "to the big show," as he put it. Whitehouse Crawford hired him in 2007 to manage the pantry and frying stations, and he soon found himself learning French gourmet techniques, making stuffed pastries, pickled items and appetizers.

"There was always something cooking," said Bru, who worked with Whitehouse Crawford chef Jamie Guerin and sous chef Chris Teal. "I learned a lot there, especially about presentation."

Following Whitehouse Crawford, Bru joined the staff at the Whoop Em Up Hollow Cafe, where he helped make entrees, pastries, desserts, salads and even created some of his own specials and menu items that "were well received."

After the 2010 season at the Whoop Em Up, Bru signed up to get the kitchen going at Ski Bluewood and began to develop his dream to open a diner in Waitsburg when Times owner Imbert Matthee approached him about becoming the managing partner for the coffee shop.

Bru said he has had a long love affair with the beverage from the days he went bass fishing on the John Day River with his grandfather to his first job as an espresso cart operator at a Portland-area Fred Meyer.

When he was a young single man in Portland, Bru frequented Coffee Times, a place with great espresso where one could play chess and hang. He learned even more about espresso when a close friend at the time opened a coffee shop on West Burnside in Portland.

For Coppei Coffee, Bru envisions a place to peruse the newspaper, catch with friends and see the kids wonder in to get homemade ice cream on their way to the swimming pool. But like other members of the team, he also hopes to make the coffee house a destination, if not a stop for travelers.

"I'm very excited to serve the community and draw in outside revenue for Waitsburg," he said.

Nichole Wood

Age: 38

Coppei (Birthplace):

Pendleton

Favorite coffee drink:

Short wet cappuccino

Nicole Wood has her roots in Walla Walla, where she moved from Pendleton at age 5. Daughter of a single mom, who was a hair dresser and shop keeper, and a dad, a construction foreman, who lives in Florida, Wood graduated from Walla Walla High in 1991.

Her first job, at age 16, was at a McDonalds, but after she graduated and moved to Seattle, Wood quickly discovered the coffee business. At age 18, she managed an espresso cart for B&O Espresso on Capitol Hill and studied with envy the methods of a nearby competitor, Cafe Vivace, whose founders have perfected the Northern Italian espresso making techniques Coppei Coffee hopes to emulate.

It was the first time, she saw anyone doing coffee art, the leafs and hearts embedded in the espresso drinks' capping foam.

"That place was amazing," she said. "I looked up to them. I fell in love with them."

Enjoying a free life style with few boundaries, the young Wood followed her mom who moved to Florida in the late '90s to get away from substance abuse. But it would be four more years marked by more restaurant jobs and partying before Wood chose sobriety through a 12-step program and moved to Walla Walla, where she met her husband Josh Wood.

"We were ordained to be together," she said, only half joking. "Nobody wanted to put up with me and nobody wanted to put up with him."

The couple now has two children and lives in Waitsburg. In recent years, Josh Wood has worked for the penitentiary, while Nicole has made a living selling used clothes and shoes on Ebay.

But ever since her days at B&O, she's yearned for good espresso and immediately contacted Bru when she learned there were plans to open a coffee shop in Waitsburg.

"I love the whole coffee experience," she said. "It's in the coffee, but also in the atmosphere and the feel of the place. I think we'll be capturing it here."

As a food service professional, Wood said she thrives on organized chaos with her most rewarding challenge to bring everything together under pressure.

"They call me a whirlwind," she said.

Part of Coppei Coffee's mission will be to educate customers about gourmet coffee and the art and skills that go into it.

" I have a passion for Waitsburg and coffee has always been a big part of my life," Wood said. "It's great I won't have to drive to Walla Walla any more to get good coffee."

Lindsey Thomas

Age: 25

Coppei (Birthplace):

Seattle

Favorite coffee drink:

Caramel macchiato

Don't let that birthplace fool you. Lindsay Thomas may have been born at a hospital in the big city, but she's every bit a country girl whose family has deep roots in the Touchet Valley, particularly in Waitsburg and Prescott

She grew up on her family's ranch and wheat farm near Prescott, always busy helping her mom around the farm house or chasing horses and cows.

"Everything we did had something to do with animals," she said.

One of the things that came naturally around the country kitchen was cooking and Thomas recalls making apple muffins with her siblings for Mother's Day at age 12. Of course, mom still had to clean up the mess because nothing could keep the youngsters from running out the door to be outside.

From a Catholic family, Thomas went to Assumption Elementary in Walla Walla and graduated from DeSales High School, where she developed a further interest food as she helped put on lunches and benefit dinners.

Her first big espresso job was for Niki's Coffee shop on Isaacs Avenue in Walla Walla, where she pulled shots and got her first real taste for gourmet coffee. After that, she had various jobs pouring wine at the Ash Hollow tasting room, helping Elizabeth Cole at Blue Crystal (screen printing) in Waitsburg and working at the Whetstone Pub for two years before it closed in 2010.

"I flourished there," she said about the friendly bar. "People there were very good to me."

That winter, she went to Anchorage to take a job at T.J. Fridays, but she was quickly back in the Lower 48.

You can't really talk about Thomas without mentioning her real work rounding up feeder steers on the family ranch or her two biggest loves: barrel racing and singing .

She has sung the national anthem at various local fairs, including Dayton Days, Frontier Days and Milton Freewater, where she was the 2004 Queen.

She's also sung the nation's song at basketball games, football games and occasionally provides vocals for the popular Frog Hollow Band.

"It's such a high," Thomas said about doing harmonies or belting it out on stage. "They (Frog Hollow) opened a door for me."

What she likes about being and working in a coffee shop is to people watch. Of course, as an extrovert, she has no trouble interacting with customers as well.

"Being from a farm family, I can relate to people here," she said. "If you know and understand your customers, you can serve them better."

Sarah Groffman

Age: 36

Coppei (Birthplace):

Albuquerque

Favorite coffee drink:

Caramel latte

Sarah Groffman was well on her way to becoming a winemaker after she graduated from the Walla Walla Community College's viticulture program.

But two things got in the way: her fear of heights in a business where a lot of work is done on stairs and high places; and the tragic death of her mentor, Stan Clarke.

"A lot of it (her interest in wine) died with Stan," Groffman said.

But not her love of everything food, which goes back well before she became master in her own mother's kitchen at age 13.

"I've been cooking ever since I was a little girl, making pancakes for the family on weekends," she said. "One day, I decided to rearrange my mother's kitchen because I was doing much of the cooking anyway. I did all the baking after that."

Groffman was born in Albuquerque and lived there until she was 28. She still considers it a special place, from where she carries fond memories going to raves, hanging with skateboarders and punk rockers, "being around mod kids," as she puts it.

Her first job was at age 16 at a movie theater and she quickly transferred to the food business: Dion's and Double Rainbow family restaurants and a dive called "The Fat Chance."

She attended the University of Mexico briefly in the hopes of becoming a high school English teacher, but realized the physical and organizational confines of the profession were not for her.

"I literally walked out of class one day, thinking 'I don't belong here,'" she said.

She discovered she was much more comfortable in the world of fine dining. She "fell in love" with gourmet food and wine at Portobello's, a high-end Italian restaurant in Albuquerque where she "had good mentors."

After two and a half years, that was followed by a stint at Pranzo, an Italian restaurant in Santa Fe, and Scalo, a fine dining establishment in Albuquerque after which she helped open "Graze by Jennifer James.

In 2002, Groffman moved to Seattle, following her half sisters and her dad, whom was newly married. She worked at the Pink Door, Troianni and the Five Spot downtown, then helped open High Life in the old Ballard Fire Station.

But being from the Southwest, she struggled with the weather after several years, so a friend in the food business suggested she should consider moving to Walla Walla.

In 2005, she joined Clarke's viticulture program and discovered Waitsburg, then got a job at the Whoop Em Up Hollow Cafe and moved to the One Of A Kind town in 2007.

Now, she works with Leroy Cunningham to help educate teenagers and young adults about growing food, sustainable living and careers through Rural Green Youth Enterprises.

She picked up her love and knowledge for espresso at the many Italian restaurants where she worked and considers good coffee to be situated in the food hierarchy somewhere between wine and foie gras.

" Mmmhh, breakfast: good coffee and a really nice pastry," she mused.

As someone who has always enjoyed making tasty things for people, Groffman wants Coppei Coffee to be "another piece of the community.

"I want Waitsburg to be the best home it can be and be good to people who pass through a small town," she said.

Imbert Matthee

Age: 52

Coppei (Birthplace):

Breda, Netherlands

Favorite coffee drink:

short wet cappuccino

When Imbert Matthee bought the Times in fall of 2009, the Dutch immigrant was as excited about owning two Main Street buildings as he was about having his own newspaper after a long career as a daily news reporter, editor and columnist.

Born in the south of Holland, but raised in a small town near the university town of Utrecht, Matthee grew up drinking gourmet coffee with his mother and the cleaning lady during the traditional Dutch late morning coffee break.

After graduating from a Catholic high school in Zeist in 1978, he spent one year attending teacher's training college but decided he'd rather see the world.

In the summer of 1979, he hitchhiked across Canada, traveled through Alaska and returned to the Netherlands to fulfill his mandatory military service, vowing to return to the new continent he'd fallen in love with.

After a year and a half in reserves officer's training, he enrolled at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and began studying journalism, completing his degree at Western Washington University in Bellingham and attending the London School of Economics for a Master's degree in international economics after marrying his first wife, who was from Chehalis, Washington.

"I wanted to be a foreign correspondent," Matthee said. "See the world on someone else's dime."

After summer stints at the Seattle Times, ABC News and the Los Angeles Times, Matthee joined the staff of the Everett Herald, worked as a spokesman for a state government agency and finally settled at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, where he finally got to travel as Pacific Rim correspondent and columnist.

Sarah Groffman

In 1998, he joined the Port of Seattle as a spokesman and moved to Bainbridge Island, where he later joined a nonprofit clearing land mines in central Vietnam. In 2000, he co-founded a nonprofit, Clear Path International, to assist the victims of land mine accidents.

In 2008, Matthee and his second wife, Karen, went on a wine tasting trip to Walla Walla and were thrilled to discover Waitsburg.

The first thing he thought when he walked down Main Street?

"This town needs a coffee shop," he said. "It was crying out for one."

Coffee and an occasional French-style pastry being his favorite and only breakfast, Matthee said he can't wait for Coppei Coffee's door to open.

"I'll finally feel completely at home," he said.