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Springfield, MO
KeenBean Coffee Roasters LLC is expanding next week to a community just south of its longtime Mount Vernon home.
The coffee business started 20 years ago by husband-and-wife owners Darrell and Tracy Bradshaw plans to open a shop Monday in Monett at 812 E. Highway 60. Tracy Bradshaw said the new KeenBean location will seat 22 and fill roughly 1,000 square feet in a building shared with boutique retailer Flying V Mercantile LLC. The couple first told Springfield Business Journal in March about their Monett expansion plans.
Tracy Bradshaw said Alyssa Vaughn, owner of Flying V, recruited KeenBean last year to fill a portion of its storefront in adjacent space. Flying V just relocated to the Highway 60 building from its former 219 E. Broadway St. shop and also is set to open in the new space Monday, Bradshaw said. She said the couple signed a one-year lease with Vaughn, adding the rate is still being negotiated.
“We have always looked to Monett,” Bradshaw said of the couple considering an additional shop prospect outside Mount Vernon. “We’ve always noticed there’s not much coffee there and it’s hard to get. There was a business opportunity there.”
Bradshaw estimated a $25,000 investment for equipment at the 10-employee Monett shop, which will have a more limited menu than KeenBean’s Mount Vernon location at 1031 S. Market St. The larger Mount Vernon shop’s menu includes coffee drinks, soups, salads, wraps and pastries.
“Here, in Monett, we are starting out with just coffee and pastries,” she said.
The expansion to Monett is part of a busy year for KeenBean, which posted record-high revenue of $600,000 in 2020, according to past reporting. The company’s mobile coffee truck moved in April to Metro Eats, a new farmers market and food truck park venture in west Springfield. The truck previously operated at Farmers Market of the Ozarks.
Additionally, a second Mount Vernon shop is partially open across from the town’s high school and intermediate school at 701 Hastings St., Bradshaw said.
“The drive-thru is not open but all of our production has moved there. We are prepping and baking all of our chocolate chip cookies there, freezing them and providing them to both Monett and Mount Vernon,” she said. “We’re doing the same with our scones, and many of our muffins are premade there. We’re utilizing the kitchen there as a production facility.”
She said the drive-thru opening is expected within the next month, depending on staffing.
Utah-based gourmet cookie chain Crumbl Cookies opened its first Springfield shop; interior design business Branson Upstaging LLC relocated; and Lauren Ashley Dance Center LLC added a second location.
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