Couple opens coffee house

Audra and Ro Dominguez have opened their neighborhood coffee house called Audra’s Copper Coo Coffee and Tea. Their unique name comes from the Highland Cows they own. In Scotland, cows are called “coos” and they have copper-colored shaggy hair covering their bodies. The Dominguez family owns six cows and two are expecting.

They officially opened on January 31 and are located at 225 Clark St. They operate Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. 

The idea of owning a coffee house has been a lifelong dream for Audra. They had been searching for a location in town and things had never worked out. Audra and Ro had a little house they were gutting and remodeling. Ro was trying to envision the layout of furniture and rooms inside the house for them to move into it but he wasn’t able to find a satisfying idea. But one late night, he had a revelation.

Audra, with bubbling enthusiasm, explained about Ro, “He came over, woke me up at 2:00 this morning saying, ‘Hey, I got you your coffee shop.’ I said, ‘What? Where?’ He said, ‘Next door.’ I said, ‘The house!?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Aren’t we going to move in it? He’s like, ‘Nope.’ I’m like, ‘Okay.’ So from there, everything just switched.”

That conversation was about one year ago and since then they have been hard at work getting ready. Fortunately, the Dominguez’s have been able to start the business debt-free. Audra explained, “The past year we’ve been knocking out walls and working on things and ordering machines and supplies in and getting things together. We still have construction to do outside and landscaping and everything when the weather permits and then at this point we’re yeah. You guys provided us with so much support from our friends in the community.”

Audra added, “It’s been wonderful. We were self-funded, so we didn’t take out a loan. So we just have been putting it together as we could. So it took a little longer than if we had just got a big dollar amount from the bank, but this is a good thing.”

Now that they are up and running, Audra and Ro sell a variety of products. Audra said, “All of our coffee and teas are organic… We have specialty coffees, anything you can make from an espresso machine, from mochas and lattes, and we’ve got nut milk for people who are lactose intolerant and we have sugar-free syrups.”

Audra added, “All of our teas are loose leaf teas, and we can make any of those teas into a latte. Chai latte is the most common and famous, but we do a lot of different ones, and our signature is the Madagascar vanilla tea lining, and they’re delicious. So we sell our teas by the ounce and our coffee. We have coffee bags to go, coffee beans. Our coffee is roasted just for us in Cody at Cody Coffee Roasters. And he does our own blend. So you can’t get that blend anywhere else.”

For food, they have Keto products. Their business cannot be a restaurant per the Town Code and Audra said, “We did get a variance to open. So we went through the town hall and did all the paperwork for all of that. I can’t take an order and go back and cook something here.” Everything is baked off-site at a bakery where the food is pre-made and wrapped.

Audra explained, “it was very important to me to provide that for the community. We have just a variety of different Keto baked goods daily.”

It’s been almost a month now since they’ve opened and Audra said, “It’s been good. It’s been smooth. My favorite thing is talking to people, seeing the community, people coming in. And I would love to go visit people, but I don’t have that kind of time. So now I’m here and I get to see them come in and catch up with everybody and see what’s been going on in their lives. It’s been really, really lovely. And the community has been so supportive.”

Their location is unique and Audra said, “It’s kind of like an Easter egg. People are like, well, it took us a while to find you, but, once you’re here, it’s like, oh, look, there it is. And yeah, you know how to get here.”

Audra added, “I just wanna say thank you, first of all, to all the support in the community we’ve had and just wonderful support that way… We’ll be here. If anybody has questions or comments or suggestions, we like the feedback from the community. I just want to hear what they liked or what they would like to see changed or anything so that we can continue to evolve and just be a service for the community.”