KEARNEY — An old car wash at 5621 Second Ave. in Kearney has been transformed into a drive-thru coffee shop.

It’s the third Kearney location for Barista’s Daily Grind. Jasmin McGinnis, who owns Barista’s with her brother-in-law Edgar Cruz, calls it “my love letter to baristas and the art of making coffee.”

Customers can see its espresso bar as they wait for their coffee, thanks to a mirror that McGinnis hung so patrons can watch their coffee being made from start to finish.

That espresso machine is also lit with chandeliers.

“It’s bright yellow. In my brain, the heavens are opening up and an angel choir is singing. You get a front-row seat,” she said. “I think that’s beautiful. It’s never been just a cup of coffee for us.”

The pair, owners of Barista’s since 2013, had been seeking a site on Kearney’s northern end for several years. “I guess I just knew that if we had a north store, people would come,” she said.

But finding a site wasn’t easy. “Land in the north part of town cost $1 million per lot. A double drive-thru coffee shop would cost $400,000,” she said. “That meant Barista’s would have had to put $1.4 million in a third location. That’s just not feasible for small coffee shop owners.”

Then she and Cruz discovered the old car wash, empty for six or seven years. “It has a green shingled roof and a beautiful long drive-thru and incredible accessibility,” she said.

Years ago, Barista’s founders had warned her never to open a branch in a pre-existing building. “I understand and respect that,” McGinnis said. “But nobody ever refers to the Barista’s on Second Avenue as ‘the old bank.’”

She and Cruz kept the building as it was, but knocked out the left side that had held car wash equipment in order to create what she called “a beautiful drive-thru area. In the winter, when rain and snow are blowing in, we can make the drive-thru a good experience.”

McGinnis and Cruz have owned Barista’s Daily Grind since 2013. They relocated it from 4402 Second Ave. to 2301 13th Ave. near the University of Nebraska at Kearney. They added booths and tables along with a double drive-thru.

In 2017, they opened a second Barista’s in the former Exchange Bank at 1502 Second Ave. At 1,200 square feet, it has both indoor seating and drive-thru facilities.

“Edgar and I took a huge risk in opening that. We wanted to go north. We never meant to go south, and it wasn’t meant to have any seating,” she said. But people came, so she created interior seating.

“People tell us they prefer us and our brand but they’re not going to drive six minutes across town,” she said. That’s a key reason for having several locations.

But that can be a challenge, too. A decade ago, after she and Cruz purchased Barista’s in 2013, she searched for centrally located drive-thru locations, including the Hobby Lobby parking lot on West 39th St. and behind NebraskaLand National Bank on Second Avenue. Neither deal came to fruition.

McGinnis is proud of her locally owned and operated business. She noted that only three of Kearney’s 16 coffee shops are independently owned.

She said owners of small-town, independent coffee shops face a mountain of challenges, including financial ones.

“We don’t have the same margins. A large corporate coffee shop pays three cents for one 20-ounce cup. I pay 23 cents,” she said.

“Local shops have to provide a service that’s fantastic,” she added.

Each Barista’s location has the same menu and service, but differing ambiance. The UNK campus shop, renovated during the COVID-19 pandemic, has ample seating at tables and booths and can be rented out for parties and meetings. It also offers a high tea experience.

The Second Avenue shop offers delivery and catering, The new north shop is a quick, convenient drive-thru only. “It’s small on purpose,” she said.

McGinnis and Cruz briefly feared that the new north location might steal customers from the Second Avenue site, but that didn’t happen. Instead, she has been “overwhelmed” by the response.

“That tells me that the demand for our brand was strong. We’ve been validated by the need for a third store,” she said.

Barista’s offers 130 flavors of a wide variety of specialty coffees, along with chai, herbal tea, smoothies, Italian sodas and creamsicles. It has 21 employees and is adding 14 at the north store.

“Many of them come in as students at UNK and choose coffee as their career because they developed a passion for it here,” she said. “Others leave having learned something new. They will take a piece of Barista with them whenever they go.”

“We always prided ourselves on being artisan-trained coffee makers. When we give you a drink, we want you to see that a real person made it. Not a machine, not a robot. We take pride in making that drink,” she said.

“To me, success isn’t having a million stores. It’s having a good work environment,” she said.

“I want to continue providing amazing experiences for the community to be proud of, and give you a place where you will be proud to bring your out-of-town friends,” she added.

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