For many college students and local residents alike, coffee is the go-to beverage to fuel any decaffeinated soul—especially on those dreadful Monday mornings. But thankfully, Tried & True Coffee Company in downtown Corvallis has recently opened a bigger, second location in Southtown, and it is nothing short of aesthetically pleasing.
How It Came to Be
I got the chance to chat with Ann Schneider, the co-owner of Tried & True and a coffee craftsman for 12 years, about how she and her husband, Collin, started their company. As a couple from Newerg, Ann and Collin knew they wanted to start their business in another small town similar to their own—and thank the coffee gods they decided to start in Corvallis.
In October 2014, the dream became a reality when they stumbled upon a space downtown, built in the 1900s, to start up their first coffee shop that became Tried & True. “There’s a lot of freedom in how you can invest and give to people when it’s your own place,” Ann explained. “For us, it’s our employees, our customers, and our community are majorly my focus; it’s a lot more about that than making money.”
For the idea of the second shop, Ann knew that it needed to be bigger—much bigger. Luckily, she and her husband found an open building in Southtown that had promising features to work with: visible to drivers passing by, parking spaces, large interior, and old garage doors that they’ve upgraded into windows. The cool thing they can do with the garage doors is open them to a patio area for customers to use in the summer time—aka even more seating areas for more customers. Another stunning feature about this second location is the huge mural painted on the wall by an Oregon State student—which was a 3-day project that turned into a 3-month project, but ended up looking amazing, to say the least.
Fun fact: Tried & True makes their own caramel sauce. Hell yes. And customers go nuts over their chocolate caramel hazelnut latte (pun intended).
What’s on the Menu?
For those of you who are coffee newbies that are hesitant on drinking coffee or non-coffee drinkers, no worries! Tried & True also has a variety of teas, as well as a few beers on draft and wines from local areas in the Willamette Valley. Also, if you are a supporter of businesses that use products from their community, all of Tried & True’s products are Oregon based. As a small business owner herself, Ann believes that “It’s really important for [Tried & True] to support our local small businesses.”
After they opened their second Tried & True in January, there has been nothing but great responses by the community. “We’re excited to be in Southtown,” said Ann. “And I think in the next 10 years, Southtown is going to be super different than it is right now; the landscape is changing in a really positive way, and I feel like we got in on the ground level.” With two locations already stationed in Corvallis, she hopes to have five to six more locations all around the Willamette Valley in the future.
If you’re looking for a coffee shop that’s open every single day (7am-6pm) with friendly baristas, plentiful seating, a cozy interior, Instagram-worthy lattes and mochas, then check out Tried & True in Southtown.