This Louisville coffee shop & bakery is opening a new location in Indiana. Here's where

Many plans are in motion at the Louisville-based coffee shop and bakery Please & Thank You. Perhaps the most exciting is a brand-new coffee shop location set to open in Indianapolis this spring. Company owner Brooke Vaughn chose a 1,200-square-foot location at 849 Massachusetts Ave. and hopes to have the new shop open by May 15.

"I'm from Indianapolis, so it's like a homecoming for us," Vaughn said. "And actually — a lot of [restaurant owners] have huge payments due on Emergency Income Disaster Payment loans. If you see a lot of places opening new locations, it's because we're all obliged to pay this money back. How many of us will be left in another year is questionable, but hopefully, we're all doing our best to expand and take care of our team."

Vaughn said her loan repayment bill is $10,000 per month. The only way she could generate enough revenue to pay the bill was to open a new store or two. She's also interested in opening a location in Denver, Colorado.

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"The unfortunate part is there's only so much business you can get in Louisville," she said. "My Market Street store is by far our strongest store, but a lot of that is tourism where 60% of the customers there are new, even though it's been open for 13 years. My other stores are fine and paying for themselves, but there's not enough people here to generate the type of revenue [I need.] That's why I'm looking at bigger cities. $10,000 a month is a big nut to crack."

Vaughn's other recent project involved moving the company's headquarters to a larger space, but it hasn't worked out.

In December 2021, Vaughn bought a 5,000-square-foot building in Shelby Park at 700 E. Kentucky St., intending to move the company's baking facility there when its current lease ran out. But after renovation estimates came back at well over $1 million, Vaughn had to cancel the plan and re-list the building for sale.

For now, Please & Thank You will remain headquartered in Louisville's Portland neighborhood while Vaughn searches for new space.

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The secondary program she's working on is an expanded wholesale partnership with Kroger. About 14 Kroger stories now carry Please & Thank You's frozen "Dough Boxes" so far, and Vaughn hopes her cookie dough will be sold in Kroger locations nationwide soon. The dough boxes come in boxes of two dozen ($65), three dozen ($85) or four dozen ($100) cookies.

Please & Thank You has three Louisville-area locations: the original store at 800 E. Market St., one in Clifton at 2341 Frankfort Ave., and one in Prospect, Kentucky at 9561 US-42. The West End bakery and cookie factory is located at 1626 Duncan St.

Reach food reporter Dahlia Ghabour at dghabour@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville's Please & Thank You to open store in Indianapolis, Indiana