July 18, 2022

A locally owned coffee kiosk has popped up on the west side, looking to fill a niche for the quickly developing area. 

Owner and operator Judy Swearingen opened First Stop Coffee Shop at 12th Street and Ellis Road after she turned over her former business, Chasers Food & Spirits, to new operators. Swearingen said she had been wanting to open a coffee shop for a while.

The new operators “have been successfully running Chasers for over a year now, almost a year and a half. So that’s when I decided, you know what, I can dive in and do my coffee shop like I had been wanting to,” Swearingen said.   

The Chasers location ended up being set up perfectly for a drive-thru, so putting the coffee kiosk there seemed natural, Swearingen said.

“We were able to set it up right in the parking lot,” Swearingen said. 

First Stop offers several types of coffee drinks, as well as smoothies, Italian sodas and matcha and chai teas. A new addition to the menu has been made-from-scratch  breakfast sandwiches and burritos, she said.

“One thing that we’re really proud of is that we offer such a wide variety of items,” Swearingen said. “There has been a real need for a coffee venue on the west side, and (we are) delighted to provide this service for the west-side residents.”

First Stop, which opened Memorial Day weekend, also is drawing customers from nearby towns.

“My main objective is that I saw a need,” Swearingen said. “The west side needed something like this to provide that kind of service. Not only the west-side residents, but we also encompass places like Hartford, Humboldt or Montrose as they’re coming into town.”

First Stop is open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday.