Our Story
Sara Aschliman, local architect, always had the passion for designing gathering spaces. Growing up, her mom loved hosting family and friends. When Sara moved to Cincinnati, she began a neighborhood potluck in her own home where friends and family gathered.
The vision of building a local coffee shop as a “third space” for the community to gather grew out of Sara’s experience in space making and hosting. In essence, the coffeeshop is designed to feel and function as the neighborhood living room.
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Wyoming Community Coffee opened with the help from LaTerza Artisan Roasterie, which was at the time located in nearby Lockland. LaTerza owner, David Gaines not only introduced Sara to the world of coffee, but to the world of social enterprise business practice which aligned with Sara’s vision for WyCoCo. Social enterprises operate as for profit businesses that seek to maximize benefits to society and the environment. As a social enterprise, WyCoCo chooses to reinvest profits directly back into the staff and community space.
Flash forward five years and WyCoCo has become a vibrant and vital community hub - a true success in terms of mission and vision, however as the business has grown WyCoCo’s goals continued to grow. When La Terza moved across town to join forces with Kerrikan Spirits Company, it felt like the time for WyCoCo to make the leap into roasting their own coffee. In Summer 2022, Sara furthered her business planning and model through the Mortar Business Accelerator and was awarded the Main Street Ventures Leap Grant for capital.
Adding a roasting component allowed Sara the opportunity to further careers for her employees, as well as have control over where WyCoCo sources their coffee beans. As a female owned business who also seeks to collaborate with and support other female owned businesses WyCoCo is choosing to source from fair trade and socially conscious coffee farms around the world such as Cafe Femenino, a global collaboration of small female owned coffee farms and Katia Duke, a fourth generation Honduran coffee farmer and a true trailblazer in the female coffee farming and producing business.
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In addition to the new roasting space, the coffee shop was recently renovated to provide additional seating, more kitchen space, outdoor coffee bar and patio with a dedicated pick up window, as well as elevating the indoor and outdoor aesthetics of the space for the community to continue to gather.
The Work + Shop is a new offshoot of Wyoming Community Coffee. As the coffee shop began to outgrow its capacity, Sara and her team have renovated the adjacent building next door for professionals wanting a quiet work environment and for those wanting to rent out the space for private meeting space and social gatherings. The Work+Shop desires to provide a space for creatives, entrepreneurs, and community members to work, host or attend an event, learn a craft or skill, discover and support local small businesses. Learn more here.
