Karah-Leigh Hancock
The Valdosta Daily Times The Valdosta Daily Times Sat Mar 13, 2010, 11:27 PM EST

HAHIRA — Tim Coombs has a new project in the form of a coffee shop and his son, Chris, is helping him with the venture.

The owner of Coombs Heating and Air in Hahira, the elder Coombs learned the building was available and opening a coffee shop was the “right thing to do.”

“Like my wife said, I just needed something else to do,” Coombs joked.

While Tim is busy with the heating-and-air company, Chris has been running the day-to-day operation of the coffee shop.

“I’ve always wanted to try my hand at (something like this),” Chris said.

While coffee is more popular today than ever, right now Church Street Coffee only has regular coffee, but will be getting an espresso machine soon to brew fancier coffees.

“We’re working towards that,” Chris said. “That was kind of our intention to do that.”

Along with coffee, the shop has a variety of breakfast foods and lunch items.

“Breakfast is just a standard breakfast,” Chris said. “Omelets, stuff like that. We try to run special omelets every now and then and (do) a few different things. (At) lunch time, we do soups, salads and sandwiches.”

Chris said he and his father just threw some things on the menu.

“In a way, that was good because it let the customers decide for us,” he said. “We just respond to the demand as much as possible.”

Among the most popular items on the menu are ham-and-cheese omelets and veggie omelets.

“At lunch we sell a lot of reuben sandwiches and club sandwiches,” he said. “We typically sell more sandwiches than coffee.”

Besides adding an espresso machine soon, Church Street Coffee plans to offer hand-pattied hamburgers.

“We’ve got a grill coming in, in just a few weeks,” Chris said. “We’ve had a lot of people asking for that, you know, hot sandwiches. People want burgers.”

The shop offers Wi-Fi service to its customers while they are enjoying their coffee or food.

“We are a wi-fi hot spot,” Chris said. “I think we’re the only place in town that offers that. We’ve had a few people take advantage of that.”

But among the food, coffee and even the Internet service, Church Street Coffee offers something that only a small business in Hahira can — Hahira memorabilia.

Along the walls of the shop, photos, newspaper clippings and even a football jersey can be seen. The Coombs are excepting memorabilia donations from others in the Hahira area.

“(We get stuff from) our customers mostly,” Chris said. “Different customers that come in and say ‘We have some old pictures we’d like to bring in.’ Some of it comes from family, like my great uncle and my grandfather. (It’s) been good for us. We’ve had a good response to it.”



Church Street Coffee

107 South Church Street

Hahira, Ga. 31632

Phone: (229) 794-3383