Veteran and City Councilwoman Jennifer Morton stands outside of her newly opened Coffee Corner in the HUB building in Airway Heights. The grand opening of her second location was January 11.
AIRWAY HEIGHTS – Residents of Airway Heights can find a new Coffee Corner location at 12703 West 14th Avenue, as the spot just opened on January 11 said owner Jennifer Morton.
Morton said as a council member she wants to show the residents of Airway Heights she is fully engaged and wants to interact with the community. Morton said the only hurdles she really faced when opening the second location was "putting the basic pieces together" and getting approval from the church board.
Morton said she has big goals for the shop and hopes to implement a stage with possible live music. She also said it is a great venue to host events where people can come in and watch local or major sporting events with the three large flat screen televisions on the wall. She said the new location is approximately three times bigger than the first shop, and that means the community event opportunities are vast.
She also personally bakes a lot of the bread products the shop sells including gluten free and keto friendly breads along with homemade pastries. Morton said she likes to make as many items from scratch as she can because she wants to have that authentic and cozy feeling when people dine there, and because customers have specifically requested certain diet specific items.
Morton said the location in the community HUB building was chosen because it was a great setup for the coffee shop and diner. The Refueler was the diner previously located in the spot, so it was an easy transition into the coffee shop. Heights Church is also located in the same building, and that helps bring her some business as well.
The councilwoman said she tried to mirror some of the items that were on the Refueler menu, and that is so people can come in and still get some familiar favorites such as the Reuben panini that is the current item in demand.
The only difficulty she has really faced after opening is some residents have expressed it is hard to find because she hasn't been able to get adequate signage installed. She is currently working on that though, and said she partnered with local sign maker and window painter Denny Wuesthoff who owns "A Brush Stroke Away" in Airway Heights.
Morton said she lives in Spokane, and has been working at Fairchild Air Force Base since 2015. Initially she worked in the 141st Civil Engineering wing and recently transferred into working as a paralegal in the 141st Air Refueling Wing in 2020.
She said prior to that she was stationed in McChord Field, an Air Force Base near Tacoma, and worked in the 446th Airlift Wing during her service there.
The council woman said she was also in the Army Reserves for two years as part of the 659th Engineer Company.
The entrepreneur said she was the first person in her family to go into the military and to attend and graduate college.
At a young age, Morton said she was adopted from the country of Haiti by a man that raised her as a single father. She said they didn't have much when she was young, and her family struggled financially.
When she was living in Davenport, one of her high school teachers encouraged the young woman to go to college, although Morton said there was no way for her family to pay for a continued education.
That was the turning point in which she decided to go to college, and the military was a great way to develop her skillsets and pay for college at the same time. She earned a liberal arts degree at first but was always determined to go further. Morton said she then continued going to school and earned a master's in public administration and a master's in business administration.
Having a heart for small business is what drove her to working toward the business degree, and initially she wanted to help small local businesses allocate funding and resources. With her degrees, she continued to work in her military career.
After she ran and was elected to city council, she started getting curious about opening a business in Airway. Her colleague Larry Bowman was also a council member and at the time and decided to sell his coffee shop located in Fairchild Air Force Base.
Her entrepreneur spirit convinced her to get serious about business ownership and she decided to buy his coffee stand in 2019 which she still owns. She said the growth has been steady and recently got the opportunity to open a bigger and more versatile second location.
Having a place for community togetherness that helps people come together is what inspired Morton to get into the food business. The veteran said she has big plans to continue growing and potentially start up locations in Cheney and Medical Lake someday, but for now she is content to connect with and provide for Airway Heights.
Matthew can be reached at [email protected]
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