Brewing growth: Sheboygan coffeehouse expanding its footprint

Rich Palzewic

Staff

March 9, 2026

SHEBOYGAN – Bo LaBouve said moving from Thailand to the Sheboygan area in 2012, at age 17, provided the perfect environment to grow her entrepreneurial ambitions.

After attending Sheboygan South High School for two years and learning English, LaBouve said she went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in international business and human resources from Lakeland University. 

Now, the owner and manager of eb flo coffeehouse in Sheboygan said plans call for an expansion at its current location at 340 S. Pier Drive.

“It’s much needed,” LaBouve, who grew up selling food on the streets of Bangkok with her mother, said. “When I first opened [in 2022], I just wanted a small coffee shop that runs with two or three people, because I also had to be a mom to my daughter – she’s pretty much as old as the cafe.”

Though she had originally envisioned a small coffee shop, LaBouve said it wasn’t until last summer that she realized she needed to expand to accommodate the growing customer base.

“All of a sudden, I looked around, and if you come in during the summertime, we’ll have people standing with their plates eating,” she said. “That’s when I first thought maybe we could go bigger.”

LaBouve said her husband has been a major source of inspiration, encouraging her to “think outside the box.”

“I came from a different family – always too afraid to think big,” she said. “But, my husband finally said to me, ‘You could totally do this.’”

LaBouve said those initial ideas eventually led her to develop a plan for expanding the coffee shop.

“We’re going to have more people in here,” she said. “I ran things for a couple of years to make sure everything was going well. Once things were running smoothly, I got comfortable with thinking ahead.”

To address operational challenges ahead of the expansion, LaBouve said her husband recommended adding a second register.

“People were starting to complain about having to stand for so long, so we put another register in,” she said. “But, even with two registers, we still have the same amount of space, so I knew it wasn’t going to change much. Even if we can take orders sooner, the operation is only this big, so that was a huge reason for expanding.”

LaBouve said the original plan for the expansion – which is being completed by Quasius Construction – focused solely on enlarging the kitchen.

“We rethought that pretty quickly,” she laughed. 

The 2,700-square-foot project now includes more dining space.

“Even on our slowest day – Monday – if you come in here and look around, there’s no seating,” she said. “That’s why we will also expand the dining area.”

LaBouve said Quasius handled the initial construction work at eb flo when she opened in 2022.

“It was completely empty before they came in,” she said. “Things have been delayed a little bit [with the expansion], but it needs to be done before summer – that’s the whole reason we’re doing the expansion. We need to alleviate our space issues before the busy summer season.”

Living the American Dream

Not knowing English before moving to the States, LaBouve said she worked diligently to learn the language – understanding that mastering English and pursuing an education were the keys to her success.

“Even being here for the first three years, I still didn’t speak a lot of English, but I had a plan,” she said.  “When I came from Thailand, I just wanted to make a good living for myself, so I knew I had to go to college. None of my family members went to college. I was the first one, and I’m still the only one.”

Not quite knowing what her career path would look like, LaBouve said she started with some general education classes at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s (UWGB) Sheboygan campus.

“The hope was that by attending [college], I’d learn more about what my career path would look like, and I’d learn more English,” she said. “By the end of the two years, I could for sure speak more English because I was also working, too.”

After graduating from UWGB’s Sheboygan campus with an associate degree, LaBouve said she didn’t think she could afford a four-year degree.

“[After earning my associate degree], I thought it would be best for me to go to a technical college,” she said. “I applied to LTC (Lakeshore Technical College) in Cleveland, [where I] took two years of accounting and business management.”

Having held positions at Toy’s Restaurant, Piggly Wiggly, American Orthodontics, MT Nails and Spa and Torginol in the years before opening eb flo, LaBouve said each job gave her valuable experience that helped shape her career and character.

“All of the different jobs helped me decide what I did and didn’t want to do,” she said. “When I became pregnant with my daughter, I left Torginol and decided I wanted us to do our own business. I was born and raised selling food, so that was the start of eb flo. The coffeehouse fits me perfectly.”

Changing her mindset

Though eb flo got off to a slower start in 2022, LaBouve said the reason had nothing to do with what the coffee shop offered or the vibe it created.

“It was simply because I wanted to do everything myself,” she said. “When we first opened, it was just me and a friend of mine who came with me from Torginol. The way I thought back then was that I had to do everything myself. I opened, closed, came up with all the recipes, mopped the floors and talked to all the vendors.”

With a three-month-old daughter to care for – even with help from her mother – LaBouve said continuing on that path became impossible.

“I would go from 6 a.m. to like 9 or 10 p.m.,” she said. “Finally, my husband said, ‘This is ridiculous.’”

Following the traditional approach of many family-run Asian businesses, LaBouve said she initially tried to handle every detail and do all the work herself. 

“If you notice a lot of Asian restaurants/businesses, it’s a lot of families,” she said. “The old way of thinking… we wanted to have control over everything and do all the work ourselves.”

However, after being open for only two weeks, LaBouve said she faced reality.

“We closed down,” she said. “We had no work-life balance – it was just too hard.”

After reopening in December 2022, LaBouve said the shop experienced another brief shutdown. 

“Some folks from a former coffee shop said they could help us out, but we quickly found out we didn’t necessarily agree with some of the things they were doing,” she said. “For example, they wanted to serve people in paper cups, and I absolutely wanted to serve our drinks in a nice mug. They also wanted to take some menu items away because they were too hard to make.”

It was then, LaBouve said, that she knew she had to change her mindset or risk not chasing her eb flo dreams.

“That time, I told my husband, ‘If I’m going to run it again, I’m going to hire people,’” she said. “When I reopened, I hired about five people. Obviously, I was still the main person doing a lot of the work, but I learned how to hire people and trust them.”

Through the process, LaBouve said she learned it was okay to spend a little money on employees to ensure the business ran smoothly.

“It took me a while to learn because I was young and didn’t truly understand everything there was to know about the money and how it all worked,” she said. “My husband helped me a lot.  My mindset had always been, ‘If I don’t have the money, I need to put in more labor.’”

Opening “for good” three years ago in February 2023, LaBouve said eb flo has steadily grown over the years.

“That first summer, we had eight employees, the second summer we probably had 20 and then last summer, we had 23,” she said. “This coming summer, we’ll probably have 30 people working. It’s been a journey.”

Sheboygan chamber recognition

eb flo’s growth and continued momentum were recently recognized by Sheboygan County Chamber of Commerce – which named the coffee shop Culinary Star of the Year at the 2025 Champions Gala.

LaBouve said she was pleasantly surprised at receiving the award.

“I feel one of the main reasons we got nominated for the award is because of our croffles,” she said. “A croffle is a cross between a French croissant and a Belgian waffle, with some Asian inspiration thrown in. Though I’ve seen a few other places now starting to offer croffles, you really can’t find them quite like we do them at eb flo.”

At eb flo, LaBouve said, croffles are prepared fresh with each order, even though “in Asia or elsewhere, they do it a bit differently.”

“Asia does it more like a dessert in a bakery case, where you bake them in the morning and you sell them like that at room temp, all year round, all day long,” she said. “Asian croffles are dry but also crunchy. Ours are crunchier on the outside but warm.”

In addition to its croffles, LaBouve said eb flo offers a variety of drinks, breakfast and lunch items and baked goods.

“I would describe eb flo’s space as nice, where people can hang out,” she said. “You don’t need to get in and get out in two minutes – you can stay a while. We have a server and never have fewer than four people working. I take pride in our service.”

eb flo is open daily from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.For more information on eb flo coffeehouse and to stay up to date on its expansion, visit ebflo.com.