Fort Smith Coffee Co. to open a location in the U.S. Marshals Museum

Fort Smith Coffee Co. is expanding its footprint yet again, this time opening inside the U.S. Marshals Museum on the Arkansas River in downtown Fort Smith. A grand opening is set for Sept. 7.

Kaity Gould, who owns Fort Smith Coffee Co. with her husband Gabe, said the coffee company, which has two cafes downtown at The Bakery District and the at the corner of Rogers and Towson avenues, will open a third location at the museum.

“We had an initial discussion with them about a year ago. The timing just wasn’t right,” Gould said.

At the time, the Goulds were working on plans to open the third Fort Smith Coffee Co. at The Barracks at Chaffee Crossing. Gould said the plans for the cafe at Chaffee Crossing have been put on hold. It seemed the right time, then, to look more into a cafe at the museum.

“When we first moved back to Fort Smith in 2013 we thought, ‘how cool would it be to have coffee on the river?’” Gould said in a Facebook announcement of the new satellite cafe. “One of the possibilities I’m looking forward to the most is the possibilities of sunrises and sunsets in this space while sipping on a warm cup of coffee. … “We couldn’t be more proud to partner with the U.S. Marshals Museum in the new adventure.”

Ben Johnson, president and CEO of the U.S. Marshals Museum, said they always envisioned the museum’s cafe space as being a backdrop for people’s everyday lives.

“We’re extremely excited that today we get to announce our partnership with Fort Smith Coffee Co. to operate a satellite location here at the United States Marshals Museum to provide an awesome amenity for our visitors, our guests and our community at large right here on the Arkansas River,” Johnson said on the Aug. 22 Facebook announcement.

Gould said the space is perfect for their newest cafe, though they will be putting their own unique stamp on the space. The cafe will be open during museum hours, at least to start.

“They have told us we can do what we want with the space. Right now we’re going with the museum hours, which after Labor Day will be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday,” Gould said. “But we are going to listen to people. If they want sunset or sunrise coffee on the river, we want to plan our hours to do that.”

Customers will not have to purchase a museum ticket in order to visit the cafe, but Gould said they hope that people will want to do so, to have their coffee and lunch or snack and then see all the experiences available at the museum.

The cafe will offer a limited menu at the start with the Goulds again taking their cues for customers in what they will offer. The cafe will initially offer wraps, salads and breakfast burritos along with scratch-baked pastries that Fort Smith Coffee Co. customers have come to expect, she said.

“We’re going to have some special drinks that play off history and the (U.S. Marshals). But we’ll slowly add items,” Gould said.

Staff at the new location will also be minimal at first with at least one barista working at all time along with Gould and her husband manning things as needed.

“We will add staff slowly as we learn what we’ll need,” Gould said.

Because the cafe space was built when the museum was built, the Goulds have had minimal capital costs associated with opening the satellite. They have a “really nice” espresso machine up and ready for the Sept. 7 grand opening.