Smiley Bee Coffee & Sweets Shop

06/13/2026

🔨 Update Time 🔨

We haven't put up any updates in the last couple weeks because there hasn't been much to say (other than the night we had so much rain and we couldn't keep up - I do have a video from that night I can post, if there's interest.) There still isn't much to say.

Today, finally, we heard from the engineer that the insurance company is sending out to look at the roof to decide what "needs to be done." He's coming from Minneaplois and the soonest he can come is the morning of Monday, June 22nd. That will be day 36 since it happened that we haven't been able to do any real repairs.

Even after he comes to look at it, I assume we won't have the go-ahead right away. He will probably have to make his report and submit it to the insurance company, but at least, finally, we will be another step closer.

We have started doing some of the simpler, smaller tasks. Our kitchen is pretty much gone. We've taken all the counters out and took up most of the flooring so that the old hard wood floors underneath could dry. Even after everything seemed dry for a week or two, when we would take up the floor tiles, there was still water under them. If it's not exposed to air, it doesn't dry easily!

Hopefully by the end of the month we will be able to get the roof replaced and get started on redoing everything inside.

Thank you to everyone for all of your kind words and thoughts. It's truly appreciated, especially by me, but also by all of the worker bees.

06/09/2026

I want to thank Sammie Maxwell for putting together a benefit for Smiley Bee this Saturday and Sunday evenings at the Methodist Church (1700 Harlan) at 6pm each night.

I won't be there Saturday because I have to be in Omaha picking my mom up from Chemo, but I will do my best to be there on Sunday.

https://www.facebook.com/share/17oAFdnRQb/

06/04/2026

We're cleaning out our storage room. Anyone want some of this? {Prices on individual pictures.}

06/03/2026

Someone left a rock in my other store’s flower barrel…. 🐝

05/31/2026

To Our Smiley Bee Community,

This post was actually much harder to write than I ever imagined.

As most everyone knows, a storm two weeks ago took a portion of our roof, forcing us to temporarily close our doors. Right now, we are in a holding pattern while we work with insurance to determine the extent of the repairs, which will involve replacing the roof, tearing out walls, ceilings, and flooring, rebuilding, and repainting.

We have been open for eight and a half months now, pouring everything we have into creating a space for this community. However, this forced pause has brought us to a major crossroads, and we want to be entirely transparent with the community we love.

Before the storm hit, we were averaging about 30 transactions a day (transactions, not items - transactions often have several items.) To put it plainly, operating at that volume has been costing several thousand dollars a month out of pocket to keep the doors open. This is in addition to the 65 hours a week of my own time outside of my full-time job at KawreS—meaning days that start at 4:30 AM and don't end until usually past 10:30 PM.

Smiley Bee has been a profound dream of mine, and I want nothing more than to provide a vibrant, successful space for Falls City. But over the last two weeks, I have also realized how nice it is not to constantly working and how it has weighed on my life.

If we are going to reopen as the coffee and sweets shop you know, we will hire professionals to get the work done quickly and open as soon as possible. But if we plan on this, we need to find a sustainable way to bring in significantly more business. If we pivot to a different direction—such as a rental venue or community event space—I may do a lot of the repair work myself over time to save and recoup money. This is a decision I'm needing to make now, before the insurance gives us the go ahead, so we know which way to go.

Before we make a decision that affects the future of this space, we need your help. We have created two brief surveys, and we need your absolute, unfiltered, and honest feedback. Tell us what worked, what didn't, and what changes or additions would actually make you walk through our doors more often.

If you visited us regularly (at least a couple of times a month), please use this link: https://forms.gle/9FxWi9WSvbozy1eh7

If you only visited occasionally, tried us once, or have never been in, please use this link: https://forms.gle/aHkyAxAqQoWtMfRs9

These surveys can be completely anonymous. However, if you choose to leave your name at the end, we will gladly give you a $5 store credit if and when we reopen as a thank-you for your time.

Thank you for the 8 1/2 months of support, smiles, and community. We appreciate you taking the time to help us figure out what the next chapter looks like.

Sincerely,
Ryan and the Smiley Bee Worker Bees

05/28/2026

* Update *

A third party insurance adjuster came today for about 5 hours taking pictures, documenting, measuring, etc. He will write a report and give it to the insurance company by sometime next week for them to review.

He figures by the amount and type of damage. the insurance company will probably want to send an engineer out after getting his report. So it sounds like it's going to be several more weeks before we can do anything permanent to the roof, which also means before we can do too much inside either.

We had a couple questions about what we can and can't do, so he tried getting hold of his contact at the insurance company about 2 hours after he started, and by the time he left, they still hadn't gotten back to him. Not a good sign when he can't even get them to talk to him while he's on a job for them.

Although we have gotten the humidity down in the 50s (from 94% a couple days, to staying around 66% - 70% for a while), it still seems to look worse every time we look a little closer. We will probably be removing a lot of the drywall and insulation, since almost everything we added was insulated, and that insulation can't dry out inside the walls or ceiling. We will also be taking up a lot of the floor tile we put down (luckily it's floating, not glued) because several areas have buckled and to get to them, you have to take out anything laid after it.

In short, we have a lot of tear out, putting back and repainting to do, and still don't know when we'll be able to start on it. We think we'll be able to start tearing some of it out, but that was one of the questions we had for the insurance rep that we can't get in touch with. We are definitely going to miss this summer's ice cream season.

Thank you do David with Midwest Homes & Restoration, he is always there when any insurance people come, and also handles a lot of the insurance talk, taking it off of our plate.

We'll try to keep you up to date with how things are going.

05/26/2026

How much do you remember??

We got all of the carpet pulled up from the basement floor, but it left us curious.....

There were areas that were easier to pull up, and others that were much more difficult - more glue. You can see where the different areas are, and the shapes they made, in addition to the different amount of glue, make us believe that the carpet was put down at two different times.

Does anyone remember when the carpet was put down? When it was partially white tile and partially carpet? Which parts were carpeted first, the light or the dark areas? (I'm guessing the light areas because of the rectangular dark area angled in the center of one of the light areas near the front steps where I'm guessing they probably carpeted around a display of some sort and had to put in the piece later - and yes, it was still the piece when we took it out. Actually, a lot of the carpet was pieced together.)

What were the light areas? Were they counters, or were they display areas (like Walmart's clothes are often on carpet even though everything else is on cement.) What about that light area by the wall on the right? How about the light area near the back stairs that is separated from the front light areas?

Also, going even further back. There is a red and green checkered tile under the white tile. Who remembers that? And at the very front of the building, near the front steps, the white tile doesn't go a couple feet from the front and half way across the floor - you can still see the green and red tile, and it has angled shapes to it where you an see down to the concrete floor. Any idea what these were?

Just curious what people remember. It's always fun to try to imagine how a place has looked in the past.

05/20/2026

A few people have been asking for updates, so I thought I would put something up even though there’s not much to say yet.

We have turned it in to insurance. I checked just before 5:00 today and we’ve received acknowledgments for filing claims, but nothing else yet. We can’t really do much until an insurance adjuster comes – and our temporary fixes haven’t helped as much as I had hoped with the weather we’ve had. Even though we’ve vacuumed the water out each day, this morning the basement had more water in it than ever, covering the floor all the way to the front of the store. It’s all sucked out again and hopefully we’ll be able to get something more done before the next rounds of rain in a few days.

05/18/2026

While we hope we never have to do emergency repairs we are available when needed. It’s 4 pm on a Sunday and five trucks have been in front of this business since early this morning. Their roof was blown off last night in a storm and we have crews doing emergency patch work and others helping to get water out of the building. Anyone can fix your property, not everyone will respond on a Sunday to your request for assistance. All of you work is covered by a 10 yr warranty. Call us for your roofing needs 402 817 0606

05/18/2026

I am just now getting done working, so I have not had a chance to go through Facebook comments, but I will start looking at them tonight, but may not be able to finish until tomorrow night after taking my mom to Omaha tomorrow.

I have been told by several people of all the care, offers and well wishes. Thank you sooo much for coming together to support us. It does mean a lot to all of our worker bees. We will see what happens over the next few days. Hopefully, it won't be a long shut down, but only time will tell.

Thank you again for all of your support, comments and offers!

And also, a big thank you to Midwest Homes & Restoration and all of their crew for coming out on a Sunday to help start cleaning up and putting what will hopefully be a good enough temporary fix on the roof to get us through the next couple days of storms without too much more damage.

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