When Dan White’s three daughters approached him about opening a coffee shop in High Ridge, he and his wife didn’t take them seriously – at first.
“Like any good parents, we ignored them for six months to see if it was something they really wanted to do,” he said, “but then we started buying into the idea. It made sense.”
Dan said he had hoped a coffee shop like Starbuck’s would open a location in northwest Jefferson County. “But every time a new place would open up, it was something else,” he said.
Dan is a self-taught bread baker. He started thinking maybe his daughters could sell the sourdough bread he was perfecting at the coffee shop they wanted to open. A business plan was formulated, and the coffee shop, called Toasted Coffee House, opened Nov. 20 at 3015 High Ridge Boulevard.
Emily, Dan’s 26-year-old daughter, said the coffee shop idea originated with her. “I kind of pushed Dad,” she said.
Emily used to work for a small business called Fit Flavors, and she said she frequently did office work at a St. Louis-area coffee shop.
“It was such a cozy environment, friendly, and the owner was always there and really nice,” Emily said. “I loved that. I loved how much of a community place it was. I feel like we already have such a great sense of community in this area and the coffee house is something that goes hand in hand with a community setting.”
Emily and her sisters – Sarah, 30, and Rachel, 22 – are the owners of Toasted Coffee House, but that doesn’t mean their parents aren’t involved.
Dan makes the bread – two varieties of sourdough, one white and one with whole wheat, oats, flax seed and honey. The whole wheat flour, which is organic and non-GMO, is sourced from a farmer in northern Illinois.
Dan’s wife, Penny, is a tax accountant who helps with finances. She also makes the chocolate chip cookies that the shop sells along with the pastries that Rachel makes.
Rachel and Emily, who have backgrounds in the food industry, run the shop during the day, while Sarah focuses on social media and planning events.
“I actually used to be a teacher,” Sarah said. “And then I was a stay-at-home mom for a while. I’ve just kind of taken all the event planning of doing field trips and all my creativity that I used to use with my kids, and I’ve put it here. I get to plan a lot of our big functions and events that we do, and I do all the social media.”
Emily said the three sisters have never all worked together before, “but Sarah and I worked together for a little while watching kids at her home, and I worked with Rachel at Red Lobster.”
Rachel said a year-long internship at Disneyland in California, plus working as a waitress since she was 16, has given her experiences that are invaluable in her new business. Her stint at Disneyland taught her about customer service.
“They (Disney) are very customer service oriented,” she said. “No matter what they ask for, you do it with a smile and you go above and beyond for every single person.”
As for waitressing, she said, “I feel like being a server has trained me for so much of life. In every job I’ve had I’ll always go back to serving. I’ll say, ‘I know how to do this’ or ‘Serving has prepared me to do this.’ Just learning how to talk to people and how to handle them in every situation.”
The sisters said their first six weeks in the coffee shop business have been promising.
“The first week we opened, we had no idea what to expect,” Emily said. “We just assumed it would be slow. We hadn’t done any advertising except what we put out on Facebook. Sarah was able to get 1,000 followers on Facebook before we even opened, so that was pretty cool. So, without doing any advertising and without any sign, the first day we were packed. All week it was crazy busy. We did like three milk runs our first day.”
Dan said Rachel is learning how to bake bread to meet his expectations.
“Within a certain timeframe, it will be all her, and I’ll sit out here and gab with the customers,” he said.
Dan and his wife are graduates of Northwest High School, as are their daughters. The couple still lives in High Ridge.
“It’s been a lot of fun seeing a lot of people I either knew 30 years ago or never met,” he said.
Emily and Rachel live in south St. Louis County and Sarah has moved to Cedar Hill, “but this is home,” Sarah said emphatically.
Emily said the plan is to add sandwiches, soup and sour dough bread bowls to the menu, as well as gourmet toast with “different fun toppings.” They also are considering getting a liquor license so they can serve a small number of wines and crafts beers.
Upcoming events include a Cars Drive-In Night, where children will make cars out of cardboard boxes and watch the movie “Cars,” while their parents drink coffee, and a “Love Stinks” trivia night in February that will focus on famous breakups.
Toasted Coffee House is open from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. The shop is also available for rentals in the evenings and on Sunday. For more information, go to the shop’s Facebook page.
Basic Beginner's Sourdough Starter Recipe
2 cups warm water
1 package active dry yeast
2 cups all-purpose flour
In a ceramic bowl, add warm water and yeast. Mix with wooden spoon until the yeast is dissolved.
Stir in the flour and mix until smooth.
Pour the starter into a plastic container that is at least four times larger than the liquid amount of the starter (such as a 5-gallon ice cream container). This will allow room for the starter to expand.
Cover with a cloth napkin and hold in place with a rubber band.
Set the starter in a warm spot for 5 days, stirring once a day.
Refrigerate and use as needed, at least once a week. Replenish with equal amounts of water and flour.
Sourdough Bread
1 3/8 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cup water
1 cup sourdough starter
1 teaspoon salt
Combine the flour, water, starter and salt in a bowl, and mix well to combine. The dough will be very wet and loose. Cover with a towel and set in a warm place to rise for at least 10 hours or overnight.
Turn the dough onto a well floured surface. Turn the dough in on itself a few times and shape into a rough ball. Place on a very well floured towel and cover while the oven preheats.
Place a cast-iron Dutch oven or other heavy pot with a lid in the oven and preheat to 500 degrees for at least 40 minutes.
When the oven is heated, very carefully remove the pot from the oven and remove the lid. Dump the dough into the pot. Cover with the lid and place back into the oven.
Bake for 30 minutes then remove the lid, lower the oven temperature to 400, and bake for an additional 15 minutes.
Remove from the pot and let cool on a wire rack for at least an hour.
