05/19/2026
Cullen and Gwen Demarest are the couple behind the coffee shop opening this summer in the old brick house across from Bellbrook High School — one of the original one-room schoolhouses in the area. The original idea, apparently suggested by Gwen’s grandmother, was to turn it into a tea shop. Cullen objected to this on patriotic grounds, so everyone eventually settled on coffee.
The two met in law school at the University of Dayton, where Gwen was assigned Cullen’s writing tutor. According to Cullen, this directly contributed to his worst grade in law school. Too much staring at the tutor and not at his paper! They now run Demarest & Demarest together in downtown Bellbrook, focusing primarily on estate planning and elder law.
These days, life mostly consists of juggling the coffee shop project, their law practice, a baby boy named Boaz, and two dogs who continue to make very poor choices around unattended snacks. The renovation itself was originally expected to take about a year and has now taken closer to five, which has proven that optimism is… an important part of the process!
