Wise Owl Coffee Roasters

Operating hours: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Extended hours will be announced soon.

Information: (918) 348-1231, wiseowlroasters@gmail.com or www.facebook.com/wiseowlcoffeecompany.

By Chesley Oxendine

Times Correspondent

Fresh conversation and fresher coffee — that’s what Jason Hathcoat wants to bring to Fort Gibson with Wise Owl Coffee Roasters.

Opened in February at 118 S.E. Railroad St., Wise Owl serves coffee roasted in the shop. Hathcoat does the roasting up to three times a week.

“I wanted people to come in, experience slow coffee, talk to us, learn the process and learn about what they’re purchasing,” he said. “We want to build a relationship with the customer.”

“We” also refers to Heathcoat’s parents, Joe and Brenda, who help him run the business.

Brenda said while Wise Owl serves everything from normal coffee to lattes, her favorite drink remains the “Owlcaccino,” comprised of blended ice, coffee, milk and the customer’s choice of flavoring.

“Our Owlcaccino’s the way to go, for sure,” she said. “I love it.”

The frozen drink wasn’t the only way the Hathcoats put ice to use, however — Joe recently opened a small shaved ice shop just behind his son’s coffee house.

“It’s something my son and I talked about, but we just didn’t do it for a while,” Joe said. “Now we have this building and they’re putting in that park across the street, so we thought, ‘let’s give it a try.’”

That “give it a try” mentality was what inspired Jason Hathcoat to start a coffee shop in the first place.

As a railroad employee, Jason had trouble adjusting to the often late hours, so he started drinking coffee to keep himself awake, he said.

“I started drinking coffee available to us, and I didn’t get it. I didn’t get the appeal of coffee,” Jason said.

After doing some research into higher quality brews he found in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Jason discovered a passion for the drink.

“I guess you could say I started a journey,” he said. “I found out there was a whole coffee culture, and a lot of it revolved around these really good single-origin coffees.”

From there, Jason considered the idea of starting his own business.

“I looked at businesses as being viable and thought a coffee shop would be viable,” he said, “and I thought the best way to control quality would be to get into roasting first.”

He began roasting coffee beans twice a week or more.

“When I first got into it, I was really intrigued with getting into it, getting into the roasting process. It just kind of gets into your blood and you want to do it,” Jason said. “I ordered my first roaster custom built for me from US Roasters, brought it home and put it in my garage, and roasted it for guys on the railroad.”

That constant roasting produces a fresh taste customers won’t find elsewhere, according to Jason.

“It’s the freshest,” he said. “We’ve got quality there, and we’re able to maintain that quality by roasting up to three times a week.”

But fresh coffee isn’t the only reason folks should visit Wise Owl Coffee Roasters, Jason said — they can come in for the customer service, too.

“We don’t have a drive-through, and that’s by design,” he said. “It goes back to the relationship, because we end up getting a lot of people who come in to see us with coffee, to learn about coffee and be in a place they can just talk.”