Nice to Meet Ya: Vicky Lewis from Mazama’s Coffee

It’s like a magnet, attracting people anytime they’re awake. Mazama’s, located in the heart of Dripping Springs, might just be the heart of the city. Well, it is at least a place that will get your heart beating a little faster.

The local coffee shop is a great place to sip a cup of java any way you like. People stop in to meet for business or personal reasons. The quiet room in the back allows for the juxtaposition of a bustling coffee house of people on the go with the peace of a dive bar tucked away in the corner.

It is a vibrant business, but, like all small businesses, for the past nine years it has been a heck of a roller coaster ride. There were the ups and downs that come along with any bit of entrepreneurship, and then with Covid’s lockdown took that to an entirely different level. But they’re still there inside and out.

Vicky Lewis and husband Bruce met in Seattle in the 90s. She was a temporary worker at a construction company, which is where they met. Seattle was a very popular city in the 90s, but after living there for a while, some of it’s staple characteristics started to be a drag.

“We got to Dripping Springs, because I was really fed up with the weather in the Seattle area. I literally did an online search for areas that had good affordable housing, low crime, great schools with an awesome climate throughout the United States,” Mazama’s owner Vicky said.

They narrowed it down to a couple of places and the Austin area won out. But living in the city was not the plan. “We weren't going to go to Austin. We had kids who were 9 and 11 years old. We were just looking for a great school district.”

When they moved to Dripping Springs, it was very different. “There wasn't a lot in Dripping Springs 15 years ago, I mean, Super S (the grocery store before H-E-B) was still here. It was very peaceful. There was not a lot of traffic. I remember just being overwhelmed... And the rolling hills and the trees were beautiful. It was a total 180 degrees from where we came from. Where we came from was beautiful as well, huge trees. But the weather here was just what I needed. To be able to see the sun in the blue skies, and you just can't count on that in the Pacific Northwest at all.”

And as any good citizen of Seattle would think, a coffee shop is exactly what Dripping Springs was missing.

“I had no retail experience,” Lewis said. “I had no coffee experience, (no experience) running a retail business ever. It just came from us moving here. I worked in high tech for 20 years, and I was just really burned out... I wanted to start my own business. What is it that Dripping Springs needs? At the same time, there's nowhere to go and sit and have a cup of coffee after three o'clock,” she continued.

“Because we had come from the Pacific Northwest, where coffee is on every corner, I thought this might be something that this town would enjoy having. And you know, we could maybe make a living at it. And my husband thought I was insane.”

Thoughts and dreams came to fruition. Nine years ago Mazama Coffee Company was born. The name came from a town in Washington State where they had a vacation cabin. It was an area they loved.

“We were trying to come up with a name for the coffee shop... (In the) family finally somebody said Mazama, because that's kind of the feeling we wanted to kind of evoke when people come in with that same feeling that we got when we went away to Mazama.” The word mazama means goat in the local tribal language.

The location at the time was not the best. For those new to town, Mercer Street wasn’t full of fun places to stay and hang out just a few short years ago.

“When we moved on to this street, there was almost nothing here. No cars ever came down this street. It was really rare.... When we opened within three or four months, the taco shop closed, the wine bar closed. And we were just like, holy cow. There were three of us on the street. What have I done?”

Traffic became even more rare with the revitalization of Mercer Street and the replacement of the bridge.

“For two years, we really, really struggled. It was one thing after another, but there was no turning back. I guess I could have gone back to my old job, but we plowed all of our savings into the shop. We put a lot of money into the space and the equipment and we were just kind of cleaned out. (But) we're going to go down fighting.”

Water line breaks with no coffee for four days, a ceiling caved. “It's like every time you start thinking okay, we've got this, we finally got this. And then something like that would happen. And then there's Coronavirus, right.” Continuing to keep the fighting spirit. Mazama was kept open.

“We never closed. We were open the entire time. I hate that word ‘pivoted,’ but that's what we did. We immediately went to online mobile ordering, which we've never done before. Within three days, we had the whole system set up so that people could order online. We were doing curbside delivery.” But seating inside and out was not allowed. “Basically, anytime they gave us an inch, we took it.”

Hours were reduced, some employees left, but not all of them.

“We had staff who have just stuck with us the entire time. They were what we needed to keep going. That was amazing. Now we're back up to basically where we were staff-wise before, but the past six months have been extremely difficult.”

Vicky, Bruce and their adult daughter covered lots of shifts seven days a week for about thirteen weeks, with things slowly changing for the better. With the present health situation, being forced to do business differently has helped with the uncertainty in the near future.

“The only things that got us through COVID was the staff and our ability to come up with new approaches and new ways of doing things. Just being open and flexible. But if the community hadn't stepped forward, we wouldn't be here... I remember crying. Like when the governor shut everything down. I remember crying and thinking, this is it; this is finally going to do us in. Then we posted something on Instagram that basically said, ‘We need (the community) to step forward.”

Things looked as dark as espresso, bleak and almost hopeless. But in a community like Dripping Springs, if you ask for help you will receive it.

“You think you're so in control, and you realize you're not in control. I think that, and I'm a total control freak. I try to take responsibility for everything. And when you realize I can't control this, I have to ask for help. When you finally get to that point where you're asking for help. And then it's there. The whole community was just helping. We just started getting online orders for gift cards, thousands of dollars worth of gift cards. At that point, I was like, ‘Okay; they want us here as much as we want to be here. So we're going to fight through this.’”

Looking back on the situation gave them hope for their small business’ future.

“I think most businesses felt that same way, at least the businesses in Dripping Springs. They just really felt, ‘Wow, we're going under’ and the community was like, ‘No, you're not.’”

Being a part of the Dripping Springs community means something more than just a business trying to make money. It is the heartbeat of the community, and because of the community’s heart, Mazama is still around to help it beat a little bit faster.

“I think most businesses felt that same way, at least the businesses in Dripping Springs. They just really felt, ‘Wow, we're going under’ and the community was like, ‘No, you're not.’”

–Vicky Lewis