12
ON THE
COVER
Nexus Coffee & Creative
- Adam Cherepski | Photography by C. Neumann
Back in the day — yes, I said “back in the
day”— coffee shops were a place to gather and
talk with friends and maybe even people we just
met then and there. Keep in mind, I am not
just talking about some arbitrary time 50 years
ago. I can recall places in Little Rock like Café
where you would meet all sorts of people over
a cup of coffee. Now, it seems like we have
gotten away from that a little. Now, we walk
into most coffee shops and look around and
we are inundated with singular people looking
faces. Often earbuds or even noise-canceling
headphones are in use. We now go grab a cup
of coffee, surround ourselves with people we
do not know and hope to have no interaction
at all. This is not a societal commentary, merely
an observation.
and Creative, may not have necessarily witnessed
this, but her concept either intentionally or
Moorehead was sitting with her dad at a café.
She felt that she needed to do something
different with her life; she needed something
new, and she wanted to have an impact. She
opened up to her dad and confessed that she
wanted to create a place. Her dad prodded her
to determine what it was that she was looking
for. After some thought, her idea, as many great
ones do, manifested itself on a paper napkin —
a few other coffee shops opened downtown,
but Moorehead had a different vision for her
and has a delicious, yet simple food menu, her
main objective is to bring people together. She
began crafting her business plan and searching
for spaces for her vision. Moorehead came upon
a spot in the River Market of downtown Little
Rock in 2017 that she deemed too good to be
true. She leased the space and began assembling
her “village” to bring her vision to fruition. In
July of 2017, with much courage and support,
Initially, I am always curious how an
entrepreneur comes up with the name of their
respective businesses. The name in this instance
linking two or more things. This is precisely
the aforementioned mission and vision that
Moorehead described. She wants to bring the
focus to connections and community.
Moorehead and her crew are ardent about
the business. While they are a coffee shop,
their focus on people is paramount. While
most people stop in for a cup of coffee, they
usually end up making a relationship over one.
This starts with the staff. I mentioned earlier
that Moorehead assembled her village to help
crew has not changed since the beginning, and
she does not foresee that taking place anytime
soon. Most would consider working at a coffee
shop a job; Moorehead affords her staff the
opportunity to make this job a career, should
they so choose. She doesn’t see them as merely
names on a schedule; she treats them as a team
of leaders, each one empowered. Each and
every team member has the chance to grow
with the business and to play an integral part
in this growth. This investiture by all involved
ensures that the connections made will be
meaningful and the service received by the
customer is the result. As an aside, we throw
the word “connection” around pretty liberally,
recently married.
As a coffee shop, I would be remiss to not
mention the coffee. Geovanni Leiva, the owner
and roaster for Leiva’s Coffee, partnered with
to community. Leiva came to Arkansas from
UA-Little Rock. His coffee is single-origin
small batch and roasted right here in central
Arkansas. His family inherited a plot of land
in Zacapa, and all of his coffee is grown there.
The Leiva family uses their coffee business
and their community-mindedness to give back.
They reinvest a portion of all of their proceeds
back into the villages of rural Guatemala. These
funds have been used to ensure running water