The 5 Women Behind 5 Local Coffee Shops

There was a pair of bohemian bookstores in Paris in the 1920s — both of which later destroyed by German bombs during World War II — where Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound would gather to discuss their craft or, perhaps more often than not, things other than their craft. 

Dubbed Stratford-on-Odéon by Joyce — a reference to Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon and the street where the bookstores resided — this artistic safe space was a reprieve from the hum of everyday life. It was where like-minded people, who just so happened to be some of the greatest literary minds of their time, could show their true colors and, ultimately, inspire one another.

Almost once a month — not quite like clockwork — a similar assembly of five women coffee and tea shop owners takes place in Fort Worth. Only, rather than meeting at a bookstore or indulging in the caffeinated beverages they peddle, the group gathers at The Holly, a wine bar and bottle shop where they indulge in flights of wine and full bottles of cabernet sauvignon. 

Initiated just over a year ago by Roots Coffee owner Janice Townsend, the informal group includes Leaves Book and Tea Shop owner Tina Howard, Cherry Coffee owner Katherine Morris, Black Coffee owner Mia Moss, and Wildcraft Coffee (formerly Arcadia Coffee) owner Carrie Collins. These five are also the masterminds behind the C.A.T. Crawl (C.A.T. an acronym for coffee and tea), a quarterly weekend-long crawl through all of Fort Worth’s femme-founded coffee and tea shops. 

On this particular Monday, Howard invited me to sit in on their meeting, where I joined in on the wine tasting and received a lukewarm response to my love of olives and Starbucks mugs. The five were also kind enough to indulge me by answering a few of my questions.

Who they are:

Tina Howard: Owner of Leaves Book and Tea Shop

Katherine Morris: Owner of Cherry Coffee

Janice Townsend: Owner of Roots Coffee

Mia Moss: Owner of Black Coffee

Carrie Collins: Owner of Wildcraft Coffee

FW: So, how did this start? How did this group of femme-owned coffee and tea shop owners come to be?

Janice Townsend (Roots Coffee): Well, when I started [Roots Coffee], there wasn’t anyone doing this, so I had a really hard time as a female in the industry — in a very male-dominated industry. And so, a couple of years ago I was like, “Man, we finally have all the cool coffee shops in one spot.” So, I reached out to a couple of the other coffee shops about doing a crawl, and no one got back to me.

So, then I was thinking, it would be really cool if we got all the female-owned coffee shops in the area together, and we did a crawl with just them. And within probably 12 hours, every single one of these women had gotten back to me, “Yes, I’m in. I want to do this; it sounds awesome.” So, we got together to just plan the event, and then it morphed into friendship and community and a group text and hanging out. And it’s just been really helpful because I’ve never had people to really support me that are in a similar role, and I think probably the same for everyone here. It’s kind of a lonely journey being a business owner. Obviously, this industry is so fast-paced, so to have some support, everything from like, “Hey, my fridge is down. Do you have a good fridge guy?” To like, “Help us to work at this event.” It’s been really nice.

Katherine Morris (Cherry Coffee): We had our first meeting right before I opened Cherry. Janice reached out as soon as I made the announcement. Then, Janice was like, “All right, there’s enough of us.” We reached critical mass.

And that was really special for me personally because I was walking into this industry with a great network of women and general support.

FW: When you get together, do you normally talk shop?

Carrie Collins (Wildcraft Coffee): No, we talk shit.

JT: Then shop.

CC: Then shop, yeah.

Mia Moss (Black Coffee): It ranges.

JT: I mean, we’re definitely friends, so there’s a lot of personal conversations that happen. But then we’re business owners, so there’s a lot of ... What do you know about this? Or what do you think about this? Or how do you do this process or whatever that is? Or what bad customer did you have this week?

FW: You mentioned earlier that coffee, tea, and the beverage industry in general, is a very male-dominated space. Why do you all think that is? 

KM: I think it’s just the history of how business is run.

CC: Patriarchal systems are in place, and they trickle far.

FW: I’ve been doing some research on this. So, I think it was 20.9% of businesses are woman-owned. Which, I mean, why is it not 50%? What’s going on? 

CC: Basically, it’s funding. Men go to the front of the line, even though it’s proven that women are better money managers [EDITOR’S NOTE: A 2020 George Washington University study did show that professional female investors do better than men]. So, it’s the same thing, these patriarchal systems are set in place to make sure that it’s hard for woman to succeed.

MM: You can break that down to race, sexual orientation, all of the things play a part, and so when you break it down even more, it becomes harder and harder to get the funding and the financial backing. Or even just the support in general, it just makes it harder entirely. So yeah, I think that women are wanting to do it; they don’t have the support, and it takes things like this for them to just jump out and do it. A lot of times they’re just going on their own without that support, without the banks. They’re making it happen.

FW: So, what’s the secret for y’all’s success? Despite everything stacked against you, you’ve been able to do it. 

JT: I think it got a lot easier when I started thinking about community over competition. Let’s work together, like when the water rises for one of us, it rises for all of us. I think hard work puts you there, and all those basic things, but I also think we’ve all done a really good job by creating culture with our staff, with our team, to be supportive, and not just be like, ‘I’m here for a paycheck.’ I mean, though you do pay them and give them the money, it’s more than that —  it’s about community. And I think that’s why people stick around. That’s why customers come back. Yeah. 

Tina Howard (Leaves Tea and Book Shop): But it’s also really helpful for the community to see the way that we work together. I always tell my customers they can go to these other coffee shops. They’ll see me [at those shops] all the time. I’ll walk in, and I’ll see a regular, and I’m not going to feel betrayed. I mean, I’m coming to get coffee [at all these shops], too. So, I think it also really helps to build a community because we are patronizing each other’s shops.

CC: I think that speaks to Fort Worth as well. Fort Worth has a very unique small-business support system, which comes from each other; I don’t think it comes from government or any particular institution. It’s a very big yet small city.

FW: How has the economy affected you guys? There are things going on right now, right? There is a lot of inflation and worker shortage. How are these things affecting you?

KM: So, I’m kind of the newest in the coffee shop ownership side of it, but I was on the operational side of coffee shop work for three years. The one thing — and this is completely contradictory to everything you know about customer service and the service industry — but what the pandemic taught me is I need to care more about my employees than I do my customer because customers were just horrible to us during the pandemic.

JT: I think it’s shifted from the customer’s always right. They’re not. We need to reevaluate that concept.

FM: Wait, the customers were terrible to you? Can you expand on that? 

MM: When you think about it, they’re all at home. They get out, and they’re able to get a cup of coffee or whatever. They’re not thinking about everything. They left home, so they left all their problems at home. They’re going out to a store or a coffee shop or a restaurant. And they just can’t fathom that you can’t do what they want or “I have to wear a mask” or anything.

And just telling them one thing or asking them one thing kind of sets them off. And I get that we’re in a pandemic, but on our side of the bar, we have to show grace. And it’s especially difficult for the baristas. They’re not in charge; they’re doing what we ask them to do. They don’t make the decisions, and they’re often young. It can be emotional. 

CC: This isn’t personal vendettas we’re setting; this is just us trying to navigate the rules that have been set for us, setting ourself aside. I will say there were a lot of times during all of 2020 where I was, like, “What the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this?” It was really hard and then I had a nurse come in, and she said, “You guys are the only normal part of my day right now.” And it was kind of like, “Okay. Well, there it is. That’s why we’re doing it.” So, it’s those little redeeming moments.

KM: And when I say the customers are terrible, instead of the normal 2% of customers that are awful, it was like 10%. Ninety percent of them are fantastic and great.

FW: What about the worker shortage? How has that affected you guys, or has it affected you at all?

JT: In 2021, we saw more turnover than we’ve ever seen in 13 years in business. And it was just kind of adapting the way we do interviews, the way we do training a little bit, and trying to find people that were going to stick around for a while. ’Cause it might be like someone starts with you, second day of training, it’s like, “Oh, I got $2 more at this place, so I’m going to go over here now.” Which I totally get — it’s a hard time to be a human especially an hourly worker. People need to take care of themselves, but it also makes it hard for business owners to navigate. It’s slowly coming to a close — the worker shortage thing is getting better — but it’s still a problem.

FW: So, it is getting better?

JT: I think so. I’ve seen a lot more qualified applicants in the last couple of months than I have in a while. I’m not sure why it flipped. Maybe it’s the inflation, and people are like, “I need to find a good steady job that I can rely on. I can’t be hopping around anymore looking for the best thing or the best hourly rate.” I think a lot of people are choosing a good job with good people over “I want to make a little bit more every hour at Amazon.” We’re seeing a lot of applicants just from places that aren’t taking care of people very well.

CC: That makes sense because they all jumped in and offered ridiculous promises and wages. But once people got there, they realized, “Oh, it’s not worth it.”

FW: Why did y’all get into the beverage industry?

CC: We question that every day. We’re not really sure.

MM: That was my first job out of high school. I worked at Seattle Sis right before Starbucks bought them out. I started there, and I’m very introverted, and I just noticed I was able to really communicate and talk to people and I normally wouldn’t. And I really enjoyed that. And then, I just noticed people need their coffee, and you would see the same people over and over again. I enjoyed it. After I stopped working there, I kept going to other jobs. Of course, I went to Starbucks, but I would go to shops when I traveled. But the big thing was, we would have to get on the freeway and come downtown or [Near Southside] to get a local cup of coffee. We would have to travel far, and I just didn’t want that for everybody. For the east side, we really needed people to invest and to show there is value here, there are people here, there are people here who are needed. There is a university here. There is nothing for the students, so it just made sense for me. And interestingly enough, I had some male coffee shop owners tell me that it was a waste of time.

And I was just like, “Okay.” And I just went ahead and started doing it. I guess to someone on the outside, it could look like a waste of money and time, but I’m not in it for money. I’m literally doing this to show people in my community that they can do whatever they want, and they don’t necessarily need to leave the community to do it.

JT: What’s really cool about what Monica is doing specifically in the group is specialty coffee, which, historically, is known to be a very privileged thing. Right?

Specialty coffee is for those who can pay $7 for a latte or whatever. And I love that the Black and Brown communities are getting more involved and saying, “No, this is for us also.” And Monica is the first Black-owned coffee shop in Fort Worth. And that’s a whole milestone in itself of showing her community, “No, this is also for you.” Coffee is literally for everybody. Coffee is such a welcoming thing.

TH: I got into the beverage industry because I wanted to open a bookstore, and I knew there needed to be something that came alongside books because books are an extremely low margin product, and it’s a very small segment of people that would come in as a regular repeat customer. So, we needed to find a product people would continue to come in every day for as well as a product that helped us fulfill our mission, which was create a space where you could pause from the insanity of life. I love my coffee, and I drink it for all the reasons that everyone does, but what we’re doing is not the I-need-a-jolt-of-energy-to-get-me-on-my-day. What we do is the pause-for-a-minute-and-have-a-moment. That’s why I got into it. And it turns out I really like it, too. And there are a lot of variables. I get bored very easily, and there is just no shortage of different types of tea out there. 

And then I found these people, and that makes it easier to stay in the beverage industry and not move away from it because there are a lot of similarities between coffee and tea. I avoided coffee in the very beginning because I was like, “Oh, all these origins and all these estates and all of these single or whatever. It seems too complicated.” And then it turns out tea is the exact same way.

MM: I can’t imagine serving a hundred different coffees the way that you serve tea. It would stress me out.

FW:  You mentioned earlier that being an entrepreneur, being a business owner, is very lonely. Why do you think it’s important to have a group like this? To have this kind of solidarity with others in your field?

CC: To literally hold each other above water. I don’t know. Friendships are harder the older you get, too. To have an even playing field with people who literally know exactly what you’re going through — and to like them on top of that — that’s really rare.

MM: It’s one of those things where if we don’t text in the group chat for a little while, we get it. No one is hurt. We understand it. There is so much going on so there is not a lot of pressure, but it’s nice to know that if you need something or need to vent, you can go to the group chat or we can come here and we can vent and we can get it out.

I lost a few friends when I started the business because people just don’t get it. They don’t understand how busy you become. And then if you have a family — marriage, kids — that comes first. So, it’s good to have people who know what you’re going through that you can kind of lean on.

KM: And also to have a safe space for confidentiality. That’s most of it. Just having a really safe space for us because we’re the bosses, so we can’t talk crap about our vendors or our employees or whatever. ’Cause I can’t go to my employees and be like, “Hey, I’m having trouble with your co-worker.” That’s not a good leadership move.

CC: Well, I think it’s great because we all have different strengths. I tend to lean more on the creative side. Kathryn is queen of the spreadsheet, not my forte.

TH: I’m learning to love spreadsheets. 

CC: I don’t think you can learn to love spreadsheets.

JT: I don’t think so either.

MM: No, you can’t. You can appreciate another person’s love for spreadsheets, but you can’t learn to love spreadsheets yourself.

TH: I do think though what Janice was saying earlier is the community over competition part is not the belief of every entrepreneur out there. So, when you find your people who are willing to put community first, that makes a huge difference. 

FW: So, what advice do y’all have for women entrepreneurs looking to open their own coffee or tea shop? 

CC: Try to reach out and find similar people in the industry to see what it actually looks like. I think we all pretty much did it alone and then found each other, but I think just to try to find somebody who would be really honest with you and tell you it’s hard. I mean, it’s really hard, especially when you add having a family on top of it and being a mom and trying to figure out how to balance that. You’re going to find your balance, but I would have killed to have a little inkling of knowledge we all bring together. 

JT: And once you decide to take the plunge, trust yourself. To hell with the naysayers, and trust yourself. Listen to yourself. The idea you had and the vision you had matter. And no one else can do what you do. And yeah, you bring something special to the table. Do something different and try something new.

KM: No. 1: Just do it. Even if you don’t see anybody in your industry that looks like you, that means you are needed there, right? So, just do it. And then, don’t compare yourself. Find inspiration. I find inspiration from these women all the time, but I’m not like, “Oh, Carrie is doing this, so I need to do this.” Because that works for her. I need to do what works for me and my shop and my community and my customers.

TH: And it also helps us like, “Oh, they’re doing this drink for summer, so we need to get creative and do something else.”

MM: It strengthens you. It inspires you.

CC: Yeah, absolutely. We compare our menus, our seasonal menus. We’ll say, “Hey, I’m doing this.” And somebody else is like, “Oh, okay. I’ll pivot or I’ll do something different.” It’s about finding our own unique voices, and we all get to explore that together. I think that’s really fun.

MM: Okay. As women, I feel like we have always had to kind of pivot, figure things out. We’re used to kind of carrying the weight in a lot of situations, and so I feel like it kind of made us or prepared us for being entrepreneurs, small-business owners. I feel like it’s in women to do it if they want to do it. And I feel like it’s one of those things where you kind of have to tap into that inner strength. For myself, it’s like not just being a mom, it’s not just a wife. I’m the youngest of four siblings, but I’m considered the oldest. I’m more responsible. When my mom had cancer, I was the caregiver, and so I had to tap into a strength that I didn’t necessarily know I had, but it was one of those things that just kind of came second nature. I just fell into that role, and a lot of women do that. We don’t get the opportunities that men get, but behind the scenes, you’ll find a lot of women taking care of the small things to make sure that a man, or whoever is in charge, is able to do the things that they’re able to do.

FW: So, straight up, have you experienced misogyny as a business owner? Do people sometimes assume certain things about you — like assuming you’re not the owner of your business — because you’re a woman?

JT: I’ve had such experiences when I first opened. People would come into the shop and be like, “Oh, cool. Who is the owner here?” And I’d be like, “Oh, I am.” And I was young. I was in my early 20s, but they’re like, “Oh, where is your husband?”

CC: My main barista was a male, and he was also my roaster, and people would come in and say, “Oh, are you the owner?” to him, and he would say, “Oh, no, this is the owner.” And they would walk away because they didn’t want to acknowledge.

JT: Whenever someone has a question about my business — that I own 95% — they text my partner. It’s just this weird Southern misogynistic culture we live in, and my husband is very much like, “No, my wife’s the owner, that’s her thing. I don’t do anything.” He’s very kind and supportive, but people still default to him because he’s the man. We all have the story.

MM: My husband launched his company a couple of years before I did, maybe three years before I did Black Coffee. And when I opened Black Coffee, people would be like, “Oh, I love you and your husband’s coffee shop.” Or they would send us a message like, “I want to meet with you and your husband about the coffee shop.” I had to sit them down and be like, “You know this never happened when you opened your business.” 

He understood [why it bothered me] immediately when I explained it to him. So he goes out of his way to make sure people know it’s not his coffee shop.

The thing about a woman is she’s pretty much everything. She’s everything. That’s what the beauty of women is, they can be all roles. They can be tough when they need to be. They can be soft when they need to be and everything in between.

KM: I dated a guy when Jonathan and I weren’t dating. We were six months in, and I’m like, “I like this guy. This might be a thing.” And we started to talk about our future. He was like, “Well, I would really like for you to just be a stay-at-home mom and take care of our kids.” I was like, “Oh, bro. Oh, no. No. That’s not me. That’s not me at all.” And then we broke up that day. I’m glad we had that conversation, but on the flip side of that, my husband, Jonathan, is incredibly supportive. He’s like, “Yes, buy that coffee shop. Do your thing. You can do whatever you want to do. It’s your world.” ’Cause he knows I’m capable. He knows I have the intelligence, the background, and the skill set to do whatever I want to do. And so that’s incredibly important. My dad was very old-school. He was 91 when he passed and very old school, and he never really gave me the chance or the opportunities that he gave my brothers because that’s just the way he thought about it.

It wasn’t until I met Jonathan and interacted with him, that I was like, “Oh, I can do whatever I want to do.” I think it’s a generational thing, and also, we’re showing our nieces and nephews and daughters that they can do whatever they want to do. And we’re not bossy; we’re leaders.

MM: That’s right.

KM: We’re reframing the terminology of how little girls approach responding to that. They should say, “No, we’re not bossy. Do you know what that is? Do you know how to articulate that? It’s called leadership. That’s what it is.”