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July 7, 2025
TOMAHAWK – Co-owner Kayli Buffington said Rise Coffee Co.’s new building is almost ready to shine as she and her husband/fellow co-owner, Tim, prepare to expand the business’s footprint – both physically and in services offered.
The drive-up coffee shop, Buffington said, is being upgraded from an 8-by-8-foot hut to a 24-by-13-foot building at its same location – 40 W. Mohawk Drive – in downtown Tomahawk.
“We have a current hut right now, and then in September, that one will be taken off [the foundation] and a new one – which is a lot bigger [and will] offer a lot more options – will be put in [its] place,” she said.
Rise Coffee Co.’s current hut, Buffington said, is the original structure to the business, which was initially founded several years ago.
“[As a side job], I would work as a barista at the Rise Coffee Hut for our previous owner, Jolene Turner,” she said. “I worked for her for a year or so, loved it, and she was at the point of wanting to kind of retire, focus on her health and she had a lot of other family obligations.”
Buffington said Turner’s focus on retirement prompted a conversation regarding the future of the coffee hut.
“She had asked [Tim and me] back in February, I believe, to see if we would want to buy it from her,” Buffington said. “We sat down, looked at everything and then decided that we would go for it. So, we took over April 1 of this year.”
Buffington – who is also a full-time nurse – said entrepreneurship and business ownership are not foreign concepts to them, as Tim is also a self-employed fishing guide in the Northwoods area.
“I have a business degree with a major in accounting, [worked in] that [industry] for six to seven years, and then about two, three years ago, I went back to school to be a nurse…,” she said. “So, [it’s] kind of full circle using my business degree again, [and] my husband’s also self-employed… so he has a little bit more free time to help out, secondary to [his] business. But it’s definitely crazy, [because] summer is his busiest time, obviously.”
However, in between her shifts and his guide trips, Buffington said they are working to complete and open Rise Coffee Co.’s new, forthcoming building – expected sometime this year after Labor Day.
New services, upgrades
In their current hut, Buffington said she and her employees have limited space to not only make customers’ drinks but maneuver around each other.
“Jolene was working slowly toward [buying a] new building, and once we took over, we just said, ‘Okay, we’re doing it right away,’” she said. “Employees are looking forward to having a bigger place to move around where you don’t feel so crammed. It can be hard on your body in the little hut, too, [when you’re] side-stepping a lot.”
The bigger building will also be more energy efficient, Buffington said, and is being built specifically for drive-up purposes – unlike Rise Coffee Co.’s current hut.
“The smaller [building] that’s there right now isn’t necessarily made for drive-thrus,” she said, “so you run into heating and cooling issues.”
The new building, Buffington said, features three new windows specifically made for both her current and forthcoming services.
“We’ll have three windows now,” she said. “Two of them will be our drive-thru windows for drive-thru traffic, and then there’s a third one toward the back of the building.”
Rise Coffee Co.’s additional third window, Buffington said, will offer a spot for customers to pick up their orders on foot.
This, she said, will be especially useful when Rise Coffee Co. launches its new online order option with the opening of its new building.
“Online ordering is something we’re going to get into because we’ll have the space for it, and I think that’ll help a lot of [our customers] who are busy,” she said. “Sometimes, we have lines of four or five cars [at each window], and people don’t have time to always stop.”
In addition to online ordering, Buffington said she and the Rise Coffee Co. team are going to try and “navigate into [offering] some food options as well.”
In Tomahawk, Buffington said take-out food options are limited to traditional “fast food,” prompting her to think in a different direction.
“We don’t have a lot of healthier, grab-and-go options for people,” she said, “so we’re aiming our vision toward fresh fruit, smoothies or smoothie bowls, yogurt parfaits, grab-and-go salads or wraps and maybe some homemade soups.”
And though it’s staying in the same location, Buffington said the new building will also help increase Rise Coffee Co.’s roadside visibility.
“It’s hidden a little bit,” she said. “It’s a small little hut on a corner, it’s not lit up well at night – stuff like that… So, the plan when we put the new building in is to have lots of light and signs.”
Strong staff, local base
As they prepare to set up the new shop, Buffington said she and Tim are also looking to add to their Rise Coffee team.
“We have two full-time employees – one of them was the previous owner’s daughter, but she will be [moving to] more of a teaching position this fall, so we’re losing her – but the rest are part-time,” she said. “I have some summer help, obviously, and then we are hiring right now [as we] transition to that bigger building, because we’ll usually have three people in it, instead of two going forward.”
Especially with the anticipated additions of online ordering and a food menu, Buffington said a strong staff is necessary for the business’s growth.
“Starbucks has online ordering, but you’d have to wait in line to drive through to get your online order or you have to go in, which is fine,” she said. “My thought process is [to] have two espresso machines – one of them will be specifically for online ordering, and one of them is for drive-thru traffic, so they don’t interfere with each other or slow down traffic. Then my third person will be doing online ordering or prepping some food.”
Buffington said though “the building is done [and] at our house now,” she and Tim still have some work left to do before it’s ready to be installed come this fall.
“My husband has to do the inside work in the next few months before September,” she said.
Buffington said she and Tim chose after Labor Day as the project’s anticipated completion date for several reasons – one being its location.
“We rent our [lot] space from the owners of [the parking lot],” she said. “There are multiple businesses inside the office space in that parking lot area, so they need to redo the parking lot, [and] they gave us a hard-stop [date].”
Buffington said they also chose to aim for Labor Day so they could avoid installing the building during “the summer rush.”
“That’s a busy time for us, so we’re looking at the middle of September,” she said. “We’ll probably close for a week, [because] we have to take out the building, the parking lot has to all be redone, concrete poured for the slab, then the building has to be put in place and then everything put back in it.”
Though summer is traditionally a busier time for Northwoods businesses due to an influx of tourists, Buffington said Rise Coffee Co. also has a steady, local customer base.
“We see a little uptick in the summer in sales, obviously because of tourism in northern Wisconsin,” she said. “However, we still do really well throughout the winter. We have a very good customer base, especially [among the] locals.”
Buffington said she and her team get customers that drive from Minocqua or further, like “south of Merrill,” to patronize Rise Coffee Co. – a testament, she added, to the efforts of its previous owner.
“She had it for three years before she sold it, and she took it [from] a few $100 days to [now, where] we sometimes see anywhere from 130-150 cars a day some days,” she said. “One of the reasons we bought it was [because] she did a really good job at establishing the business and passing it over to us [to] where we didn’t have to put a ton of starting hours and costs into it, which [we’re] very thankful for. She still works for us a few days a week as well.”
Buffington said none of the progress Rise Coffee Co. has made would be possible without its staff.
“I’m not there every day, obviously, with having a full-time nursing job, and neither is my husband,” she said. “So, it’s great to have a good set of employees.”
For more on Rise Coffee Co.’s hours, its menu or updates on the new building, visit risecoffeetomahawk.com or find it on social media.
