SoCe Coffee Co., 1203 S Broadway, Wichita, KS (2026)

04/09/2026

Remember how I (Kristopher) left you hanging in a previous post about the adventure I got to take with the awesome folks at Collaborative Origins Imports? Well, I was honored to have the experience of a lifetime trekking around Guatemala with Abdiel and Ryan and learning all about coffee at origin! Y'all, I cannot describe the scale of both my joy and the things I discovered. The industry is incredibly complex, but to learn all about it from some of the kindest, most hard-working people, in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, was a dream come true. From planting, growing, picking, and producing (in all of its various stages) - to learning about the intricacies of exporting, importing, and distributing - I experienced the coffee supply chain in a very real way. At the risk of sounding like every other person who has witnessed this part of the industry, y'all, the amount of love and work that goes into every cup of coffee we drink is so astounding! I so appreciate that my friends at COI seek to allow folks to both experience this and take part in what shouldn't be so radical of an approach to coffee sourcing: mutually beneficial relationships across the supply chain. As my neighbors and I continue to work to make SoCe Coffee Company a reality, it's important to us that we do every stage of coffee right, and that journey starts with how we source our beloved beans. Abdiel, Ryan, and each of the producers we met with taught me so much (I'm still taking notes lol!); I will treasure these memories forever and am committing to taking what I've learned and infusing it into the DNA of our neighborhood café. Because to us, a relationship-centric coffeeshop starts with relationships with the folks at coffee's origin. Again, if you have not already, check out the amazing work of my friends over at Collaborative Origins Imports, and if you're into coffee, I would highly recommend researching coffee's various and complex production methods - you'll develop a new appreciation for every sip. As my friends at COI say, here's to both better relationships and better coffee!

02/14/2026

Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all! It's time for another story post where I, Kristopher (owner), continue to document the journey of the shop!

Our story last left off at LegacyWorks, and it was there that Chayne kindly introduced me to Ryan Chipman, the owner of Collaborative Origins Imports (COI). Ryan has a remarkable story; what started as teaching English at a school in Guatemala led to meeting the kids' parents who were coffee farmers which led to learning from them and becoming passionate about the industry as a whole. Now, Ryan leads an incredible team at COI that, I would argue, is helping radically transform the way coffee is both bought and sold. Without writing the entire dissertation it deserves, specialty coffee production is an incredibly complex and resource-intensive process. It involves caring for plants that take years to bear fruit, hand picking coffee cherries (coffee “beans” are the seeds within these!), processing those cherries in a multitude of ways (often at least de-pulping, fermenting, washing, drying, and hulling - wild arts and sciences in and of themselves), exporting, importing, roasting, and preparing. Each of these stages involves people doing very specialized and difficult work, yet sadly, historically, profits would largely appear towards the latter end of this process.

While technically embodying the importer role, the COI team works to ensure that prices - across the entire supply chain - are not only fair but honoring to everyone involved. How do they do it? The most beautiful part - beyond even the astonishing coffees they source - is that all of it is accomplished by building mutually beneficial relationships across the board. In a market often driven by the commodity price of coffee, Ryan and the COI team take the time to visit coffee farmers, foster meaningful friendships with them, and ask them the price it actually costs to produce their coffees - building from this base, not hypothetical market fixtures, to ensure the farmers are making profits upon which they can sustain their livelihoods. Isn’t that amazing? It wells up passion within me, and in the coffee-sourcing world where descriptors can often mean anything people want them to mean, these folks are actually transparently and directly sourcing coffee through the context of relationship. As a neighborhood café, we exist to primarily provide a space in which neighbors can be in relationship with one another, but beyond this, we want to do every part of the coffee process well and infuse each stage with relationship. SoCe Coffee Co. will be incredibly honored and excited to source coffee through COI so that relationships can keep changing the coffee industry - and the world - for the better…and so that you can enjoy the most delicious cup possible. In this time before we open and I can then chat your ear off about them, take the time to check out Collaborative Origins Imports on social media and learn more about the incredible producers they work with. And, here in Wichita, check out both Nameless Coffee Co. and Adelitas Coffee Co. and ask about the coffees they source from COI. Finally, stay tuned for a future post, where I’ll document the incredible adventure I got to take with them!

01/20/2026

This past weekend contained a huge win for the coffeeshop; we picked up our wood for the coffee bar and almost all of the tables and chairs for the shop! And the best part is that it was full of so many adventures, too! A trip to Russell, Kansas, with a loaded trailer, a flat tire on that I-guess-too-loaded trailer (but hey, at least we had a gorgeous, Kansas sunset to look at while we filled up!), and a fun unloading session with so many generous friends (I think the best part of the group picture is that the camera was magnetized to the back of a backhoe!). A huge thank you to everyone who made this happen, and the shop adventure continues! Stay tuned for future updates as things really pick up this spring. And yes, we're keeping the bar wood a little bit of a secret! ;)

12/19/2025

Well, we weren't gonna reveal any interior pictures yet, but we figure, what the heck? Howabout a little Christmas surprise! Frankly, we also just can't wait! With demolition already complete, the space looks SO different than this now, but hey, y'all are gonna have to wait for that reveal in the new year! Some things are better kept a surprise. :) A huge thank you to the team at FirstCon Commercial Construction - Aaron, Brooklyn, Hector, Anthony, Justice - y'all rocked demo, and we cannot wait to start design in the new year! Here are some fun pics from when we first got into the space, including that stellar record booth. We fully intend to pay homage to the quirkiness of both Sweet Norma's, and our beautiful neighborhood, with the café moving forward. Happy Holidays, y'all! Stay tuned for some incredible updates in the new year, and here's to SoCe Coffee Co. opening in 2026! 🫢

11/05/2025

SoCe Coffee Co. is proud to be a part of SoCe Corner, a central hub of housing and economic development, smack in the middle of our SoCe neighborhood, that is currently under construction by The Neighboring Movement. Today, we are so excited to share about our sister, anchor business that hopes to be a part of this fun corner, as well: Wichita Food Co-op. In partnership with The Neighboring Movement, a steering committee was formed - and is still accepting members! - to create the first food co-op in Wichita...in SoCe and right next to our coffeeshop! We are so stoked! When you talk with neighbors about what they want in our neighborhood, there are two resounding themes: a neighborhood hangout spot and access to healthy food. The hope is that SoCe Corner will provide both of these spaces, our coffeeshop satisfying the former and the co-op the latter. We could not be more excited to support and partner with the Wichita Food Co-op in providing access to healthy, local food in a business that is created with and owned by neighbors. Y'all, SoCe is the place to be! Check out Wichita Food Co-op's page to learn more and take part in this awesome work, and they are looking for feedback! Take this survey to name what items you would like the co-op to stock and prioritize: tinyurl.com/ICTcoop

09/23/2025

Curious about what our future building used to be? A 1930s Dockum Drug Store - how cool is that! Opened in 1938 with its black-and-white checkered tile floor, it was a classic drug store, with all kinds of medicines and goods and a full-service soda fountain. A huge thank you to our friend Clark for digging up these amazing old photos and clippings from the Wichita Eagle! At SoCe Coffee Company, we feel honored to continue the legacy of awesome businesses on South Broadway, and before you know it, we'll be serving drinks from behind that counter once again!

08/27/2025

Y'all! We're so excited to announce that demolition of the coffeeshop space officially began today! Step 1: Remove the sharp metal from the busted awning with a Bobcat....

08/12/2025

Over the coming months of construction, I will do my best to document the journey of the project, but I also want to tell the full story of how this shop came to be. You've heard some of the details of my dream forming, and I've talked about how working with The Neighboring Movement changed my life, but another massive chapter of this story is my unforgettable time with LegacyWorks. LegacyWorks is an unbelievably incredible nonprofit in our SoCe neighborhood that does youth development through social enterprise - in short, hiring high-school-age youth and giving them job training experience through a trade of their choosing, along with just mentorship and friendship. There are three trades to choose from: GardenWorks, PotteryWorks, and CoffeeWorks, and in the Spring of 2023, I was hired on as the director of Legacy's coffee program! It was a life-changing moment, as I was first given the most amazing and thorough all-around coffee training (sourcing, roasting, preparing) from one of the most knowledgeable coffee people I know, my friend Chayne. Chayne, a long-time Reverie barista and self-taught roaster, was so kind to teach me everything he knew, and I was set up in the best way possible to teach and manage a team of high schoolers through every step of that same process. What a joy and a gift! In how many places in the world are youth learning the science and art of specialty coffee roasting?! This fantastic team of humans taught me so much about life and also management, and it is no exaggeration to say I absolutely could not be starting a coffeeshop without Legacy's presence in my life. Sadly, I had to transition out of this role way too soon, as I learned about the opportunity to work towards this shop in the neighborhood and needed to free up more time to do so. But, the collaborations with Legacy shall not end; SoCe Coffee Co. plans to brew CoffeeWorks' beans (now facilitated by another good friend, Rowdy, a much more talented roaster than I!), create some custom PotteryWorks' mugs, and down the road, source some GardenWorks' produce for food. In the future, we'd even love to experiment with hiring on CoffeeWorks' youth to give them even more shop experience, as well! Seriously, LegacyWorks is such a gift in SoCe, and if you haven't checked them out yet, do so right now!

07/15/2025

We are so honored to have been interviewed by such a fantastic journalist and amazing journal, and our excitement only continues to grow!

07/02/2025

A couple fun exterior "before" photos! We'll certainly utilize our social media to document the journey of the shop in these early stages, as we prepare for demolition and construction. The shop will be this very corner space at the southwest corner of Lincoln and Broadway, but it belongs to a larger bundle of properties of which the story is pretty amazing. I've lived in SoCe for 3 years, but I've worked at the nonprofit across the street from the future coffeeshop - The Neighboring Movement - for 8 years now! I absolutely cannot emphasize just how much this neighborhood, this job, has shaped me as the person I am today. But anywho, my sister and I have been dreaming about opening up a neighborhood-centric bakery/coffeeshop for years, we just always thought it would be further down the road or in retirement. Well, then this massive chunk of properties smack in the center of the neighborhood went up for sale, and we heard talk of more liquor stores and car dealerships, businesses our neighborhood already has in abundance. So, we at the nonprofit said, "You know what? Let's do something crazy!" And we bought them all in order to hold them for neighbors and to see if we couldn't do something different on South Broadway. At that point, my boss then came to me and said, "Well, do you want to open your coffeeshop now? We've got the perfect space for you!" And y'all, perfect can't even begin to describe it. To get to make this dream come true at 27, in my beloved neighborhood, with truly, some of the best people in the whole wide world? I'm so beyond blessed, and I'm committing to making this thing the best thing it can be for the neighborhood. And there's such exciting plans in store for the rest of the "SoCe Corner", including affordable housing, a micro-grocery/co-op, and more! If y'all don't know The Neighboring Movement yet, check it out. To do this in partnership with y'all is the honor of a lifetime!

06/30/2025

Hello friends! If you haven't met me yet, I'm Kristopher Swanson, and I'm so beyond excited to announce that I'm working alongside my neighbors to open SoCe Coffee Co. at the southwest corner of Lincoln and Broadway in 2026! Curious about the name? Our neighborhood is technically the South Central neighborhood of Wichita, but neighbors call it "SoCe" for short, and as a neighborhood coffeeshop, our name pays homage to that. I've lived in SoCe for 3 years now and worked here for 8, and let me tell you, I love this place so much! In talking with my neighbors over the years, I just kept hearing about the lack of safe, fun hangout spots on South Broadway, and as a person who has always dreamed about opening up a neighborhood coffeeshop, I couldn't help but connect the dots. The hope is that the shop will be a true representation of this beautiful neighborhood we call home; neighbors are helping curate the space, will work here, and we will also source as much as we can from within the neighborhood. SoCe Coffee Company is honored to be a part of the growing list of collaborative and community-centric coffeeshops in Wichita; truly, this would not be possible without the overwhelming support of so many Wichita coffee friends. We'll serve specialty coffee and other beverages, along with quick grab-and-go bites from other neighborhood businesses. So, get stoked, and stay tuned! Please feel free to reach out with any and all questions or ideas, follow us on Instagram, as well, and we will be posting updates as the dream continues to come true. To a neighborhood café in SoCe!

SoCe Coffee Co.

04/09/2026

02/14/2026

01/20/2026

12/19/2025

11/05/2025

09/23/2025

08/27/2025

08/12/2025

07/15/2025

07/02/2025

06/30/2025

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