The Coffee Box makes its debut in Maryville, Illinois

The new coffee shop offers signature beverages and light fare.

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Last week, a company three years in the making opened its drive-thru window. The Coffee Box, a 926- square-foot shop in Maryville, Illinois, is the culmination of a story that reaches well beyond the St. Louis metro region.

Erik Bowman, who's actively serving in the U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Navy veteran Neal Polk first met while serving in the military. While traveling the globe, they recognized a need in the United States for quality, affordable coffee that’s not oversaturated with other ingredients. In their search for roasters, they discovered Minas Espresso.

“When you’re looking at smaller businesses, companies like The Coffee Box and Minas Espresso, there’s heart in it,” Polk says. “It’s not just about the dollar; it’s about ensuring that every portion of that supply chain is taken care of. We’ve really focused on quality, not quantity.”

The Coffee Box partnered with Minas owner Bruno Nobre to perfect the product, from the time the crop first takes root on Brazil farms. “I need to do a really good job in Brazil to farm the beans, import them, roast them, and craft them,” says Nobre. "I need to really care and then place the beans here."

The trio believes in leading customers to quality coffee without making of all the decisions themselves, a lesson that Polk attributes to his military background. At The Coffee Box, this means giving employees a voice in creating the menu, including the brand’s signature blend, which has yet to be revealed. “We empowered our baristas, our chef, and our baker to identify the blend,” Polk says. “We really focus on how to empower our people to lead from the front, solve complicated problems, and think outside the box.”

With The Coffee Box currently in the soft-opening phase, the team is finalizing its daily menu, which it hopes to develop in the next two or three weeks. Both the staff and customers' opinions during the soft opening will inform the resulting menu. “We’re still going through our test kitchen right now and some of our bakery items to figure out what’s going to work and what we like personally," Polk says. "You even have Bruno over here helping us to sample food, because it’s important to us that we have good food to offer the community.

“I think that’s one thing that’s going to make us a little unique [compared to] your standard drive-thru," Polk adds. "We want to bring that culinary taste to a drive-thru.”

Nobre employs this same principle of empowering others within his home community of Minas Gerias, Brazil. Not only does he train farmers in best practices to produce higher yields, but he also ensures that they have the information needed to tailor their product for markets in the U.S.

“We fell in love with Minas and [Nobre’s] process,” Polk says. “He’s very dedicated to helping even the farmers in his local community and his parents’ local community in Brazil. Pretty much everywhere he goes, he leaves a footprint of Minas Espresso.”

At the moment, The Coffee Box is serving customers via walk-up service and its dual drive-thrus. The owners are also hoping to launch an e-commerce shop soon, in addition to offering gift cards. (An IT specialist is even on staff to help develop an app.) 

“We’re always looking for ways to improve,” Bowman says. “We’re developing systems to make sure that we can deliver the best products in the environment we are in, where drive-thrus and mobile ordering and to-go type models are really your only choice in many places. We’re working to improve upon that and make it more available than it has been in the past."

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