We were lucky to catch up with Nate And Kelly Slover recently and have shared our conversation below.
Nate and Kelly, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
This is really a faith question. Everything we do, flows out of our knowledge and relationship with God. We have friendship with God by believing and trusting Jesus. Knowing and enjoying God is our greatest purpose. We exist to honor him in the things that we do and the things he’s called us to do. In this season, we believe that God has called us to run a coffee shop in Quincy, WA. This is a dream that we’ve had since college, where we developed a love for good coffee as well as coffee shops. At different points, we’ve thought about jumping in but the risk always seemed too great and the timing and opportunity never felt right. It’s not that in starting Hearthstone we finally knew what we were doing. We had never run a business of any kind. Even though we’ve spent a lot of time in many different coffee shops in many different cities, we didn’t know at all what goes into running a coffee shop. We had to figure it all out very quickly. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend someone start and learn a brand new business and open within two months. But we’ve been blown away by the support of our community. We want to honor God with what he’s given us. Our desire is to steward it well and be a blessing to our city.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Love a Latte was one of the only sit down coffee shops in Quincy, WA. They were in business for four years. At end of October 2024, Love a Latte announced that they were selling and closing up shop. In the span of only a couple days, we had over ten different people come to us and excitedly ask, “Are you gonna buy Love a Latte?” None of these people should have had confidence that we could successfully run a coffee shop. We’ve never had a business of any kind. They all just knew that we meeting up with friends at coffee shops. Great things happen over a cup of coffee. We spent a lot of time at Love a Latte and we were excited for the opportunity to build on what they started. I sent a an email a few days after they announced that they were selling. I got a reply that said they were currently working with a potential buyer but would let me know if anything changed. I got another message a couple days before Thanksgiving that said things fell through with that buyer and asked if we were still interested. We immediately got to work, looking at the whole inventory of equipment and supplies that was included in the sale. We were running numbers and learning as much as we could as quickly as we could. Love a Latte had their last day at the end of December. We signed papers and got keys to the building the following day. From there it was a whirlwind of finalizing a business license and permits, lining up a coffee and grocery supplier, hiring a few more baristas to add to our team, buying new furniture, tables and chairs and deep cleaning every inch to transform the space to fit our vision of a warm and welcoming place for people to come and gather with friends and family over a great cup of coffee. The to do list was massive. We wrote it all out on a giant white board in the front room of our space. We were so thankful to have a ton of support and help from friends and family. Opening day was January 20th. From the message that asked if we were still interested to opening day was exactly two months. During that time when Love a Latte was closed and we hadn’t yet opened, we had so many people come to us and say that they were dying for a place to go to simply meet up with their friends. On their last day, Love a Latte had customers coming in crying because they were so sad to see it go. It added real value to our city. That’s something that’s so exciting to build on. Hearthstone exists to be a warm, welcoming and comfortable place for all people to enjoy great quality coffee. Hearthstone is a great space for people to meet with friends and family as well as be a good atmosphere for individuals or groups to do school or work. If we can help facilitate a space for that and help make it happen, that’s a huge blessing for us. We’re happy to invest into that with our time and talents. It’s awesome to walk in and see people truly enjoying the space and atmosphere that we’ve created. We’re excited to continue to foster a genuine sense of community at Hearthstone.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
We were confident that it was the right time to jump in and take this risk. It’s good to have the wisdom and discernment to know if it’s not the right time. But when you know it’s the right opportunity, go for it. Be all in. We were trusting God to help us but we were also talking to our friends and family and asking for their help and expertise. We had a lot to get done really quickly and we knew that we’d be killing ourselves if we tried to do it alone. In working with others, they were able to offer us lots of practical help like shampooing carpets, painting walls and assembling tables and chairs. These are all things that we could handle but it’s just tedious and takes so much time. We also found it was so much more enjoyable to get to work alongside our friends and family while we were building something cool that we would eventually be able to enjoy together. It’s so important to have a great community of people to surround yourself with.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
I’m so thankful to have a wife who challenges and pushes me in a good way. She’s naturally good at things that I’m not. The way she thinks through and tackles an issue is often different than how I might think to go about it. We’re able to balance each other out in a great way. We’re very glad to be on a team together. As true partners, we’re always striving to be moving in the same direction. That takes intentionality. In starting Hearthstone, we knew that we’d have to work hard to be on the same page and walking in step together. It takes a lot of trust to jump into something like this where we didn’t know at all what we were doing. We slowly kept taking it one step at a time. With each step, we’d evaluate together and as long as everything checked out, we’d take the next step.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hearthstone_coffee/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Hearthstone-Coffee-Shop-61569842378504/
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
