Welcome gains new coffee and soda shop
Amanda Everson, co-owner of The Factory—Coffee & Waffles in Lexington, has opened a second business, The Factory Coffee & Soda Shop, on Old Highway 52 in the heart of Welcome.
{Vikki Broughton Hodges/The Dispatch}
Amanda and Steven Everson of Reedy Creek, owners of the Factory - Coffee & Waffles in Lexington, have expanded their business by opening the Factory Coffee & Soda Shop in Welcome.
The new business is located at 6282 Old Highway 52 in the former Go Make Coffee Co. shop that operated for a few months as a nonprofit by Journey Church in Lexington. Prior to that, MoJoe Coffee House, a nonprofit organization under the umbrella of Momentum Church, operated the coffee shop for several years.
Amanda Everson, who grew up in the Welcome area and graduated from North Davidson High in 2010, said she had wanted to expand business into her home community. Everson’s mother, Bobbie Brown, owns Bobbi’z Hair Salon just across the road.
“I’m excited about owning a business in this area and seeing old friends from school,” she said. “I want this to be a community hangout — a safe environment where people can get together.”
Everson noted there is a large room above the shop that can be rented for meetings or group gatherings.
There’s also a familiar face helping Everson run the Welcome shop —Amanda Perryman, who worked at MoJoe for several years.
The Factory Coffee & Soda Shop offers the same dozen signature coffee drinks as well as lattes, frappes, hot chocolate and chai tea that are offered in Lexington. The Welcome location also offers the same smoothies as in Lexington — strawberry, wild berry, mango and strawberry and banana.
The Welcome location does not have a commercial kitchen, however, so the popular homemade Belgian waffles on the menu in Lexington will not be available. But a rotating variety of baked goods - muffins, cookies, cupcakes, pound cakes - made in the Lexington shop will be sold in Welcome.
As the name implies, soda mixers are a main part of the Welcome menu. The unique drink mixes start with a base of a brand-name soft drink like Coca-Cola, Sprite and Mountain Dew and additional flavorings such as flavored syrups, fruit purees and cream are then added.
The shop offers more than a dozen 20-ounce soda mixers, ranging from a Bahama Mama that combines Coke or Pepsi with pina colada puree and vanilla to the Mad Dawg, which combines Mountain Dew with watermelon and strawberry flavorings. Customers are encouraged to concoct their own combinations as well.
“So far, our number one best seller in the soda mixers is the Blue Lagoon, which is Mountain Dew with blue raspberry syrup and blue curacao syrup,” Everson said. She shared the most popular coffee in both locations is the Lexington Legend, a blend of coffee with white chocolate, caramel and vanilla.
Everson got the idea to make soda mixers after some of her employees in Lexington put vanilla coffee creamer in their Coke soft drinks, which she found to be surprisingly good. She did some research online and discovered she could use similar flavored syrups like she uses to make gourmet coffees with soft drinks for a unique flavor profile. She explained there is even a regional chain in Utah that specializes in soda mixers. “But there’s nothing like this around here!”
For customers concerned about sugar content, she said the shop offers zero-sugar soft drink bases and a wide variety of sugar-free syrups.
Everson has posted the soda mixer menu on the new shop’s Facebook page so people can call ahead at (336) 619-0089 to place and pick up orders.
Hours are 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. Once school reopens in the fall, Everson plans to expand hours into the later afternoon or early evening.
Parking is limited in front of the shop fronting Old Highway 52 but there are additional spaces behind the building.
