Round Mountain Coffee, Conway’s newest soon-to-be coffeehouse, strives to enrich Central Arkansas’s growing coffee culture and will welcome customers with a wide variety of food and drinks by mid-October.
“[The name] Round Mountain comes from the ‘mountain’ located south of Conway,” Round Mountain Coffee co-founders Scott Forbush and Kyle Sackhoff said. “It’s kind of the secret protector of Conway. It pushes low pressure storms which usually carry tornadoes to the east and west of Conway due to its triangular shape.”
Forbush and Sackhoff certainly aim to shelter those looking for a cup of coffee with their business, but they also hope to promote familial values and evoke the Natural State’s beauty in the ideals of their business.
“Coffee evokes different emotions wherever you take it, whether it’s on top of a mountain after a long day’s hike watching the sunset from your hammock, if it’s out at sea enjoying the fresh ocean air, or if it is the comfort of your home surrounded by your family and friends,” Forbush and Sackhoff said.
The two co-founders at first worked with Blue Sail Coffee, another Conway coffee shop which has been popular since its opening in 2014.
“We saw [departing from Blue Sail]as a great opportunity to fulfill a dream of ours, so we decided to take it,” Forbush and Sackhoff said. “We wanted to be unshackled in our pursuit and love of coffee.”
The co-founders hope that Round Mountain Coffee will assume a distinctive role in the already established scheme of Conway’s locally owned businesses, and especially among Conway’s other coffee shops, Blue Sail Coffee and Zetȇo.
“We expect Round Mountain Coffee to be different than the other popular coffee shops in Conway because of our experience, our desire to engage and educate our customers and community and our aim to inspire others,” Forbush and Sackhoff said. “We have combined coffee experience of over eight years, and we want to utilize that knowledge. We want to educate and create what it means to experience coffee everywhere, and we want to continue growing the specialty coffee community in Central Arkansas with Zetȇo and Blue Sail.”
Round Mountain Coffee will offer specialty coffee drinks as well as breakfast foods and pastries. For customers who may be looking for non-coffee beverages, Round Mountain Coffee provides loose leaf teas, chai lattes, hot chocolate and even local kombucha. Round Mountain Coffee will be one of the only local coffee shops to offer espresso flights, a complementary selection of espresso drinks and, in some cases, foods that correspond to or balance out the espresso’s flavor.
Round Mountain Coffee will also be providing study spaces for students, an important feature for any successful coffeehouse nowadays.
“We have a designated quiet room that will be great for studying, with plenty of power outlets for group sessions or whatever,” Forbush and Sackhoff said. “The outlets even have USB ports built in so students can make sure to stay charged and connected.”
Forbush and Sackhoff maintain that Round Mountain’s philosophy applies to more than just the realm of coffee, asserting that their new business will not only help develop Central Arkansas’s coffee culture, but also strengthen the community of Conway.
“Our big aim and vision is to do coffee with excellence, but it goes beyond that,” the two co-founders said. “We believe that anything worth doing is worth doing well, whether it’s coffee or not. We want to inspire and push others to strive for excellence in their pursuits, and to create a place where that aim is fostered.”
Image via Sophia Ordaz.
