Exploring Life & Business with Asa Reese of The Grinder House Coffee Shop

Today we’d like to introduce you to Asa Reese.

Hi Asa, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
In early 2017, my fiancée Angela Chastain and I were living over 100 miles apart and wanted to see each other more often. So, we decided after 40 years to leave corporate American careers and find a business to own and operate together. There were some hair-brain ideas at first until we saw an ad for a business for sale in Crossville. We made the trip up from Dalton GA through the beautiful Sequatchie Valley up onto the Cumberland Plateau and walked into a 1920s mercantile building in the middle of historical downtown Crossville. The magic of the building and the uplifting feeling of this space captured our hearts immediately.

As we drove home, we decided to make an offer, well July 7th, 2017 we began our journey and opened The Grinder House Coffee Shop, LLC for operations. Neither of us operated a business let alone a coffee shop, we were a little naive with the romantic idea we created in our minds. After 6 months of grueling physical work and long hours, we saw light at the end of the tunnel and began making a name for ourselves. We knew we couldn’t make it just by selling coffee, so we developed a niche menu for breakfast and lunches.

The idea was to serve made-to-order homemade food, food we both grew up on and it fit the coffee house theme. It was a slow start and I remember telling Angela when we came to net $700 a day, we could hire someone. By the first 3 months, word got around and our guests that visited quadrupled. The vision was to recreate a nostalgic coffee house feel something you would find in Greenwich Village NY, or the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. A place where community, artists, and business folks would come and hang out and enjoy great coffee, awesome food, and the art gallery that now covered our interior. Early in the first year, we found local artists to display their work on our walls and help them sell with no commission.

We started and produced a weekly live music showcase for singer-songwriters. This was connected to an Internet FM Radio Station WFMC JAMS. WFMC broadcast our show live on the internet and between us, we shared songwriters to perform live on their shows and live on our shows. It wasn’t long before we were booking some of the most incredible talents, from Country Music Hall of Fame inductees, Grand Ole Opry celebrities, Voice and American Idol winners to international indie acts. And in a short time was being followed by more than 55 countries globally. We had both domestic and international stars tuning in to our “In the House” live show. The show is an intimate listening room that feels like a house concert with approximately 80 seats.

In early 2018, I heard about the Tennessee Music Pathways being developed by the state tourism department. While there was a laundry list of qualifying requirements like you had to be in business for 10 years and that some type of significant music event had to have happened you your establishment, I wrote to the Director of Tourism and described our Songwriter Showcase we produced and that we broadcast the show live on Internet FM Radio with 55 countries following our show. I thought I would never hear back and wrote it off. To my surprise, 3 weeks later Grinder House was awarded a Music Pick designation as an official location on the Tennessee Music Pathway. Today we live stream our live shows with a 4-camera shoot in 1080p HD and digital sound.

On a variety of platforms. The Grinder House YouTube Channel, Grinder House Vimeo Channel, Facebook, Twitter, and several others. It is now a full-time job keeping up with requests to play at our venue, and we have booked some of the top rising singer-songwriters from around the world. Grinder House has been featuring 3 times now on WCTE PBS first for the inaugural Tennessee Songwriter Week Qualifying Round held every February, which we have now produced 3 years in a row. Just after the 2020 Songwriter Week, the shutdown occurred and during our closure, we built a Drive-Thru just behind our main street shop. This allowed us to provide No-Contact service for all our menu items and continue to serve our community during those uncertain times.

The drive-thru is an ongoing part of our operations and continues to serve hundreds of guests each day. Our online ordering system allows guests or travelers to purchase any item on our menu and pick it up at our curbside pick-up area or the window. Grinder House has become a mecca for our community, to work, relax, eat great made-to-order food, drink traditional Italian espresso drinks, and be entertained by top-caliber artists. Grinder House is a special spot that serves approximately 155,000 guests a year and is growing as a top choice for entertainment and high-quality delicious food.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
By no means has been easy to open and operate a service industry business on many levels and we hit some serious challenges over these past 6 years. However, Angela and I came from big corporations as senior project managers, and those skills were essential to overcome and navigating roadblocks and challenges. Those same issues arise today just not as frequently.

To be frank, once processes were put into place and standards created the challenges were more in the realm of staff and labor. Of course, between March 2020 and the middle of 2022, supplies were very difficult to receive. From paper products to food proteins everything was unavailable of shipping took forever.

As far as labor challenges were concerned, we understand that food service is not a career for everyone, and keeping staff while much of the country was receiving more unemployment money than they made at their previous job made it tough to entice employees to accept our vision and our pay scale. Although the food service industry is well known for shop jumping and temporary staffing, secondary jobs, and first jobs, we found staff when we need them most and strong intelligent, hard-working staff.

We’ve been impressed with The Grinder House Coffee Shop, LLC, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Grinder House has always been a community-oriented business, and contributes to local charities, food banks, and animal shelters we are real animal lovers. Grinder House is well known for supporting local artisans with a no-commission gallery to share, display and sell their art.

We continue to increase the awareness of working writers with book signings, produce weekly songwriter shows, and promote artists above and beyond what they would expect anywhere else in Tennessee. We staff our team with mainly single mothers so that they can be certain they will be treated fairly and their schedules can be flexible.

We hire far above minimum wage with a true living wage and provide avenues to find healthcare, company loans, and a stable support system. Grinder House brand is synonymous with quality from head to toe, with freshly made-to-order food and drinks, and a warm and inviting atmosphere where everyone is welcome and respected.

A kind and friendly staff where we have revived the adage the customer comes first. The caliber of the music artist we bring to the community has raised the bar for entertainment in the area while still respecting and booking the best local musicians. We pride ourselves on old-world values and community involvement.

Are there any books, apps, podcasts, or blogs that help you do your best?
There are some simple rules of life we have found from a variety of books that culminate in what some call the “Golden Rule” Treat others as you would like to be treated.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.grinderhousecoffeeshop.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grinderhousecoffee/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grinderhousecoffee
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grinder-house-584138221/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/GrinderHouseCof
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZUoxHgo_KSQ8KHlJgiMoPA
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/grinder-house-shop-crossville?osq=Restaurants
• Other: https://vimeo.com/user95328979

Image Credits
The Grinder House Coffee Shop and Grinder House Production