Far North brings the beans
Photos by TANNA YEOUMANS Far North has recently opened its new coffee shop.
Customers can choose beans and roast them on site.
Photo by TANNA YEOUMANS After a short course in learning how to roast the beans, customers can come back any time and do it again.
Photo by TANNA YEOUMANS The Far North Coffee Lodge has outdoor seating.
BONNERS FERRY — After about a year of bringing the coffee lounge to fruition, the Far North team has been able to round out the quad of connected businesses, recently opening the Far North Coffee Lounge. From clothing, to logos, cabins rentals and outdoor supplies, to coffee and food, they bring a variety of options for residents in Boundary County to choose from.
They serve old fashioned lemonade, cream sodas, infused energy drinks, and espresso with smiles and a friendly atmosphere.
The owner of Far North Company, Butch Short, had a professional barista come train his employees, showing them the ins and outs of making the perfect cup of joe. They weigh every shot and make sure the water is ran through at the correct rate of speed to create the richest flavor possible in every cup.
“It has to be absolutely perfect,” said Short. “We want to have the perfect shot to start with and then we build the drinks around it.”
With a variety of breakfast sandwich options in addition to loaded oatmeal, they also offer Far North Bucks rewards and punchless punch cards. Customers can enter their phone number in and get a certain amount of coffee beans per dollar spent.
The lunch menu consists of a variety of options from grilled chicken pesto sandwich and Wood’s smokie reuben, to a build your own sandwich. With a variety of items to eat on the go and the option to accompany the meal with a pick me up, the Far North Coffee Lounge brings another option to the area.
“A popular breakfast sandwich is the Tuscan Mattina, it’s got fresh egg, pesto sauce, cream cheese, applewood smoked ham, soppressato salami, provolone cheese, and fresh tomatoes served on a roll or biscuit,” said Manager Patty Ausman. “They are all super good.”
She went on to talk about a hearty breakfast sandwich option called the Timberman, which is loaded with eggs, ham, bacon, smokies, and cheese.
Ausman fairly recently retired from working in a school system and found herself wanting to work again.
“I used to get teased before, when I would get frustrated, I would exclaim ‘all I want to do is be a barista!’ in a joking manner,” said Ausman. “I came in here and the floor wasn’t even in yet, and he told me to stop by the next day, which turned out to be the snowiest day of the winter.”
The rest is history.
With coffee, tea, or an energy drink a main staple in the diet of morning people on the go, having a friendly face to talk to on a tired morning, finished with that first sip of liquid energy done to one’s preference of perfection, may make even the most drab of mornings turn into a bright day.
“I really love coffee,” said Ausman. “It’s like a home based espresso place, the environment builds the nice coffee vibe.”
After learning how to roast coffee beans and noticing how simple it really was, Short decided to implement several air coffee bean roasters in the Lodge for customers to learn, blend, and roast. With a wide v1ariety of about 20 different bean choices, customers can experiment and make their own personal blend of coffee.
“It’s not hard,” said Short. “It’s really simple, so people can blend and make exactly what they like.”
Most of the beans are organic, and each one is labeled with where they come from, making it an experience of bringing something from across the world to ones morning cup of coffee.
Speaking about a main attraction to the new coffee lounge, Ausman said, “Customers can come in and receive a short training on how to dispense their beans and roast them. After they are coached, they can be totally self sufficient.”
In the span of about 15 minutes, customers may have their own blend of coffee to take home, and rewards to follow it.
In addition to having the opportunity to roast one’s own coffee beans, the offer of house baked goods and menu items, they also offer plenty of seating indoor and outdoor for people meeting up. The front porchway boasts an outdoor seating area with the currently busy view of the highway through town, but beyond that, the Selkirk Mountains lay majestically in the background.
Far North Coffee Lounge is located in the parking lot of Far North Outfitters and is in the Far North Logo Shop building at 6791 S. Main St. They have a drive through window and accept phone orders. Open 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day, their phone number is 208-295-2244 or visit www.farnorthcompany.com.