Coffee shop and coworking space open in March in Gastonia

Melanie McIntyre met Keanu Trujillo several years ago at her coffee shop, The Wandering Cup, in Cramerton.

"We've been open at The Wandering Cup for a little over three years," McIntyre said. "Keanu was one of my early customers."

The two bonded over a mutual love for small business.

"That first year was really hard, because I just didn't know if the coffee shop was going to work. And Keanu always seemed to show up on the days that I needed a little extra encouragement to keep going," she said.

That friendship grew into a business partnership. Keanu, who had started a business coaching company, pitched a new idea for a business to McIntyre a year after they met.

"About a year after we met was the first time I gave Melanie this crazy idea that I'd like to start a coworking space, where a lot of people could come together and build their businesses together, and I'm going to want a coffee shop," Trujillo said. "I don't really think I asked as much as said, 'Melanie, I like this.'"

The two are partnering with Preston and Somer Wilson to open Alchemy Coworking and a second location for The Wandering Cup in downtown Gastonia. The business will open in March at 121 W. Main Ave., the former location of Smith Drug, which closed in 2016 after Arnold Walker, the owner of the pharmacy, sold the business to Rite Aid.

While the coffee shop will be at the front of the building, the coworking space will be both in the back and in a downstairs area. The coworking space will include a variety of offices where people can work and take phone calls, as well as a podcast studio where people can create content.

McIntyre and Trujillo say their goal for the business is to bring people together, using their collaboration to support others who might want to start small businesses and bringing more activity to downtown Gastonia. Their businesses, Trujillo said, will essentially support each other.

"One, our members being able to be constant tenants of the coffee shop, and at the same time, being in downtown Gastonia, giving people a reason to come and spend time here," he said. "As much as we are a lead generator for her, she's a lead generator for us. It's a very synergistic relationship."

Trujillo, who moved to Gaston County six years ago from New Mexico, said that he thinks downtown Gastonia has potential.

"Before I even knew what potential was from a business standpoint, I always saw so much potential here," he said. "To that point, Melanie did too. She wanted to start a coffee shop here many years ago."

Another business partner, Preston Wilson, who works in construction and whose wife, Somer, encouraged Trujillo to start a business, found the property.

"He was someone early on that mentored me in business. He was the one that presented the space… and so because of his experience in helping to develop areas, I felt really confident following him in here," he said.

The building has a rich history that Trujillo and McIntyre have worked to honor in their renovations.

Smith's Drug, a company based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, came to downtown Gastonia in the 1930s as part of an expansion into North Carolina. As part of the sale to Rite Aid in 2016, the building couldn't house any other pharmacy, and for years, it remained empty.

As part of its transformation into a coworking space and coffee shop, the building was gutted and renovated, but key aspects of the former pharmacy remain.

One of the drinks at the coffee shop will be named after a longtime pharmacy employee, Nancy Norville, who worked at Smith's Drug for 59 years.

Parts of an upstairs apartment in the building remain, purely for aesthetic purposes, and pharmacy bottles line two alcoves in the front of the building.

Additionally, walls downstairs are papered with old prescriptions.

"We actually have laced in the history a lot as far as it being a pharmacy and kind of how its past life is going to serve its future life to really honor that legacy of the Smith's name," Trujillo said.

McIntyre agreed.

"The thing that I love about Gastonia that you don't see in some of these other cities like Charlotte… Gastonia seems to really embrace history here, and I appreciate that, and that's the kind of community that I want to be a part of," she said.

The businesses are set to open March 15.

This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Coffee shop and coworking space open in March in Gastonia