Entrepreneur brings roasted coffee, specialty drinks to Loup City

LOUP CITY, Neb. (KOLN) - Before work or school, cars pull up to an “unsuspecting” quonset in Loup City to get their daily caffeine. Attached to the farm building is a coffee shop called Ash Hollow Coffee Co., where Jacie Bandur sells specialty drinks and roasted coffee.

“I just love the small community aspect,” Bandur said. “I didn’t really love it when I was here and I was young, but moving away made me appreciate it and want to come back.”

While her husband’s family is from Loup City, Bandur grew up in the nearby town of Litchfield and went to school in Ravenna.

“I grew up on a farm outside of town - a lot of manual labor,” Bandur said. “I used to sit outside on my driveway and sell sweet corn.”

She left home for college in Lincoln, where she met her husband. She picked up coffee roasting in 2020, while working for a tech company.

“I was like, ‘I should probably find a hobby,’” Bandur laughed. “I really like coffee, and I spent a lot of time in coffee shops when I was working remotely.”

At these coffee shops, she took notes on what she liked or what she would do instead.

They moved to Loup City to be closer to her husband’s family and to raise their two-year-old daughter in a small town. Bandur decided to turn her coffee roasting hobby into a business, and in March of 2023, she opened up the Ash Hollow Coffee Co.

“I knew I wanted a drive-thru because I just think of the moms who don’t want to unload and load their kids into the car,” Bandur said. “But there wasn’t really a building in Loup City that would be good for that. So my in-laws were kind enough to build the Bandur Farms offices and leave this space for us to have the coffee shop.”

The floors are made of hardwood that’s used for semi trailer flooring, and her husband helped build the counter. So they wouldn’t be overwhelmed right away, Bandur started out with a soft opening, and they benefitted from the customers who came through for the Sherman Reservoir.

Ash Hollow Coffee Co. makes latte jugs for people to buy and take back to their campsites. She changes up the menu with festive flavors each season, and she sells tea, barrel-aged coffee beans, breakfast items and plant-based energy drinks. Ash Hollow Coffee Co. makes an in-house vanilla syrup and a Polish Macchiato, which is a nod to Loup City’s title as the Polish capital of Nebraska.

“We have never had a coffee shop like this with specialty coffee, which is really popular these days,” said Melissa Dush, Sherman County Economic Development director. “Anytime we can get a young family back to the Loup City area, we just love that because that’s what helps small towns thrive.”

Dush said the area has resources like entrepreneurship classes and programs in which aspiring entrepreneurs can get loans to start businesses.

Within its first year of opening, Ash Hollow Coffee Co. still experienced some growing pains. Materials came in late due to COVID-19 supply chain delays, and Ash Hollow Coffee Co. was a part of a string of break-ins in central Nebraska.

But Bandur said they recovered nicely, and the customers make running the business worthwhile.

“It means more when you have your customers every day and they know about your life and you know about theirs,” Bandur said.

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