So many of you have asked how you can help us during this unexpected move. And usually when it?s time to move, the first people you call are your friends.

So, that?s why we?re asking you, our friends, to be part of the Arrow Coffee Co. Moving Crew?

We?re making a special edition shirt so anyone can pitch in to support our crew as we navigate our next steps. You don?t have to pack, tape, or lift any boxes - just wearing it is a way of saying you were part of the crew that helped us move onward and upward to keep Arrow going.

Because this has always been bigger than a location. This is about the community we?ve made all along.

------------FROM ARROW 8/20/2025 -----------

Dear friends,

1800 Claflin road has been our home for 12 years.

Arrow started as a teeny tiny 500 square foot space and because of your love and dedication, it quickly became too crowded. Many of you remember that little space. We only had pourover coffee and we were really nerdy. David, Ben, Cody, Hillary, Sarah, and Eric made coffee and often said ?We?re not good, but we?re slow!? because honestly no one understood what the hell we were trying to do. It started VERY slow. But the coffee was (is!) really good, and when people showed up, the room filled with an electric buzz.

David started the company on his own, and his friends built the bar and the tables (their names are still signed on the bottom of those tables, which have since moved outdoors). Within a few months, Ben joined the crew and started making wackadoo cocktails. They were delicious. We added food and pastries. We added a little patio outside (also, remember the annex?). People started understanding what we were doing and started inviting their friends and the party kept on growing. People just started coming and just didn?t stop.

Subs and such moved into the gas station next door, so we knocked down the wall and grew. We added more food and more pastries. We turned the original 500 square foot space into a cocktail lounge. Rachel stopped working three jobs and took over the kitchen. We started catering events. We opened a cafe in the Vet school. Sarah and David had a baby (and then two more!),and David started a construction company (Abode!). Rachel and Ben purchased their share of the business and then opened Pool House.

2020 hit, and our student staff went home for spring break and then didn?t return. Sam and Collin were our only full time baristas and wanted to stay on, so the four of us moved the couches into the recently shut down lobby so we could watch tv and then we started offering delivery. Collin cut people?s hair in the parking lot, and Ben took up baking, so we started putting together biweekly boxes of eggs, toilet paper, bread and kept our Groupme open for pictures of staff pets and hair cut requests. Things were scary in the outside world, but our little bubble felt safe and silly. And people kept supporting us!

Things started to get back to ?normal? but it took us longer to ease into life without masks and ?pods? (remember when we did that? lol). We slowly started to reopen, and you showed up with smiles and cheers and even a few tears (mostly from Rachel). We opened our downtown location. You kept showing up.

We?ve watched families grow. Regulars started adding children and furry little friends to their families and brought them to meet us. We made new friends from old customers, we?ve employed some of you, we?ve employed (and currently employ!) many of your children, we?ve shared meals with you, and tears, and so many laughs. You helped us (Ben and Rachel) through the 100 hour work weeks, and supported our staff through rushes full of strangers by ordering drip coffees and saying "you're doing great?. You paid our bills, paid our staff, provided a safety net of support when we needed it. YOU have made these years at 1800 Claflin FULL of magic.

Our lease was supposed to run through August of 2026. In 2023, a lease was dropped at our location and we signed it, understanding that our landlord would be in to pick it up. The lease disappeared, but no copy was sent to us. At the time, were in the middle of starting the Bodega downtown, figuring out how to balance three businesses, keep ourselves sane, and trying to cultivate a solid staff while not feeling very solid ourselves. We did not think to scan the lease because in the past, she had always taken care of that for us. We had nearly a decade of trust built, and had no reason to think differently.

On August 5th (Rachel?s birthday), we received a text from our landlord saying that she needed to be in our space after hours to look at an electrical box. We gave her the go ahead, and then the following day learned that she was indeed not looking at the electrical box, but instead was showing our space to a competing business. We immediately reached out for clarification and were told that she would contact us soon. We waited five days with no contact from our landlord, and then reached out to the other business owner, who told us that our landlord (behind our back and without talking to us) reached out to her, but she has no ill will for us. On August 15th (the day after Arrow?s 12th birthday), we received a letter in the mail saying that our landlord will be ?going a different direction?.

So here we are. Our lease has unwillingly come to an end. Our landlord has decided to move forward with a different coffee shop. Without our consent, she reached out to another established shop. We have until September 14th to exit the space that we lovingly built with the help of our friends and family. We aren?t giving up and are hopeful to see out the remainder of our lease, but to be honest the breach of trust by the building owner is hard to stomach and has done irreparable damage to our ability to feel safe and secure in what should be a sacred space for us. When the dust settles and final decisions are made our staff will move to our downtown location and we hope you?ll fill the bodega with even more magic that it already possesses.

We don?t have many answers at the moment as this news came as quite a shock that we haven?t quite come out of yet, but in the coming weeks we will be keeping you all informed and letting you know how you can help. If we do only have another few weeks, we plan on making the absolute best of them, so in the meantime we hope to see your beautiful smiling faces in the cafe. We will be cherishing every moment and probably unsuccessfully holding back tears, we?ll do our best to keep them out of your coffee.

What else is new?

It honestly feels hard to think about anything else, but these things are genuinely worth your attention, so we persist.