Amy Mathews Smith has closed operations at Nirvana Coffee Company, which is a loss for coffee lovers who enjoyed sipping their smooth, sweet lattes in the grunge-influenced space where photos of musicians hung on the northern interior wall.

The main reason for the cafe’s closure inside the D&R Theatre is simple.

“I’m not making enough money,” said Mathews Smith, who closed the cafe on Feb. 29.

Mathews Smith opened the shop Oct. 6, 2022. In the next year and five months, it’s been difficult to keep a consistent customer base.

“It’s been a little stressful,” Mathews Smith said. “And then it’s hard to keep it open when it’s been dead.”

It wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

Her problems popped up when she started running the business.

“When I opened in October (2022), my first month, I was told there would be a show the same month, and then one to two shows a month was what the plan was. So that has never come to fruition. Then, talks of ‘No, we’re not doing shows.’” Mathews Smith said. “That was a big factor of me opening in here because I knew coffee wasn’t going to pay the bills. But having an influx of 1,100 people (in the theater.) And just the publicity of the D&R opening and the visibility of it, all of it all together is what makes the difference. It changed the look of my business completely. It would have been a completely different business in here if there were shows in here.”

Customers will miss the cafe

Darrell Westmoreland, the rock music photographer who took the photos that have adorned the cafe’s walls, was one of her regular customers. He’s sad to see her close.

“It’s a store, an establishment that, in my opinion, is gonna be missed in a lot of ways,” Westmoreland said. “It’s sad, that’s all I can say. It’s sad that’s it’s another business that didn’t survive, unfortunately. And I think down the road a lot of people are gonna realize this, that ‘maybe we should have supported it more.’”

Westmoreland said there are days where Mathews Smith “just sits here,” with no customers. They’re just not coming in to the place, which featured a friendly, welcoming atmosphere, delicious coffee concoctions and original merchandise.

Issues

“And the problem is, as we were talking about, there’ll be 10 people who walk by the store, probably nine of them are homeless, so they’re not coming in,” Westmoreland said. “And there are a lot of people who don’t want to come, even in the day time, who have a problem coming to this area. That’s due to, you know, they don’t feel safe.”

Mathews Smith added how the issue Westmoreland brought up is more of a local issue.

“A lot of people coming from out of town, they’re used to it more,” Mathews Smith said of the Seattleites and Portlanders. “They don’t see it as such a huge issue because they came from other bigger cities that have (those) issues.”

While Mathews Smith didn’t want to point the finger at the nearby homeless population as to why she was closing, some of those folks have caused some stress for her.

“I had a homeless guy throw a rock through the front door,” Mathews Smith said. “So I was closed for a few days for that.”

And then she’s also had to deal with other incidences where she just had to tell someone they had to leave, and worse.

Then there was the uneasy feeling of walking through the alley next to the theater in order to throw away garbage at night. Sometimes she just tied up the garbage bag inside her shop and left it to throw it away in the morning to avoid interactions in the alley. And there were other problems with the building itself, and with a couple of the logistics of running a shop.

“The water pipes broke in the theater, so that had me closed down. That was my first ‘Uh-Oh’ right at the beginning of January,” Mathews Smith said. “But when it’s a couple days of having to shut down and you’re in fear of going out of business, that’s not a great sign. And the fact that I can’t afford to hire anyone to come and cover. I’m not making enough money to have an employee so it’s all on me.”

And then Mathews Smith, who had to work seven days per week, is also a single mother of school-aged children. There is only so much time in a day.

Each day she works she has to make it worth her time. Unfortunately for her customers, they won’t get to experience “Nirvana” again.

“I’ve had lots of people reach out, Nirvana fans who are upset that I’m closing and had plans to be here in the next couple weeks or in the summer,” Mathews Smith said.

Phil Slep, who runs the Nirvana Walk Talk and Ride tours, will miss the business, but mainly he feels for Mathews Smith.

“I, like many, many others in our community are deeply saddened with the closing of the Nirvana Coffee Company and more upset over Amy’s situation,” Slep said. “The hard work that was respected and enjoyed by all who experienced the warm, friendly atmosphere has hurt her, her family, friends and this community. It’s like a death in the family that should not have happened. I love Amy for the love and support she gave me and the tours. I am at a loss. I only hope this is only temporary. She deserves more than the current situation has dealt. She will blossom again, and soon.”

But, the root of the problem, money, was too much to bear.

“I can’t go under. I can’t miss my house payment when I’m not even making enough to cover my costs at home,” Mathews Smith said. “Unfortunately this wasn’t a hobby for me. This is an actual job. So it would be different if it was like ‘this is fun and it doesn’t matter if I make money,’ but I need to at least make minimum wage to support me and my kids.”

And then you have the costs of keeping the business open, along with affording the needed supplies.

“When I first opened and did my numbers, I was more on the lower side of things,” Mathews Smith said. “And then just the cost of all of the ingredients, a lot of them doubled. When it comes to syrups and coffee ingredients and everything, a lot of them doubled in price. So there wasn’t really too much I could do about that. It was like ‘I better just raise it now otherwise I’m not gonna make it.’”

Mathews Smith also wanted to serve a higher-quality product, so she paid for higher-end ingredients.

“And then I’m seeing (the) drive-thru (businesses), their cups of coffee are twice the amount that mine were for a drip coffee,” Mathews Smith said. “So then it was like ‘OK, I need to be a little bit more realistic on what is out there.’ That’s why the prices went up, because it was like ‘it’s not working unless I’m selling merchandise.”

While she sells a wide array of shirts, bleached flannels, tumblers, hats, stickers and so forth, she knows the local customers aren’t going to be buying those products all the time. And then after this summer, she had to re-evaluate how to go forward.

“I had to get real and look at what my numbers were, and see if it was worth it,” Mathews Smith said. “Without the shows, it just, it really was not (worth it).”

Hope for the future

Mathews Smith plans to continue to sell her merchandise and she also wants to stay in town.

“I still like doing coffee and I would still like to be able to do festivals and be in the community,” Mathews Smith said. “I just have to pivot that way. There’s a lot of investment in being here.”

Contact Reporter Matthew N. Wells at matthew.wells@thedailyworld.com.

Matthew N. Wells / The Daily World Amy Mathews Smith seen here after she opened Nirvana Coffee Company in October 2022. The northern, interior wall of the cafe featured many photos from longtime rock music photographer Darrell Westmoreland, who will miss the cafe. “It’s a store, an establishment that, in my opinion, is gonna be missed in a lot of ways,” Westmoreland said. “It’s sad, that’s all I can say. It’s sad that’s it’s another business that didn’t survive, unfortunately. And I think down the road a lot of people are gonna realize this, that ‘maybe we should have supported it more.’”