From Tiny House Coffee Shop To Big-Heart Hospitality

What does a 160-square-foot coffee shop on wheels have to do with building a world-class hospitality brand? Everything. In this episode, Robin Pasley sits down with Don Niemyer — owner of Story Coffee Company in Colorado Springs and a 31-year friend — to unpack the philosophy behind one of the most beloved coffee experiences in the city. Don shares how living four years in an RV turned him into an accidental minimalist, why his mission statement never once mentions coffee, and what his Four Levels of Hospitality can teach every business owner about the difference between a transaction and a transformation. This one is packed with practical wisdom and a big heart to match.

📍 Find Story Coffee Company at both Colorado Springs locations: Acacia Park in downtown, and 28th & Colorado Avenue in Old Colorado City.

Welcome to Design To Help Your Business Grow, where we design the unforgettable.

Interior design is always part of your company's first impression whether you are aware of it or not. Let's make the impression we really want to make on both our clients and our team members.

If you need to create unforgettable experiences, then branded interior design is your secret weapon … because we don’t do boring.  Design to Help Your Business Grow. Pasley Commercial Interiors.

Transcript

Robin: You know, we've known each other for 31 years. So when I say this podcast is about real conversations with real business owners — you are as real as it gets.

Don: I've been looking forward to this.

Welcome to Design to Help Your Business Grow. I'm Robin Pasley, owner and design principal at Pasley Commercial Interiors in Colorado Springs. We are a commercial interior design firm and contract furniture dealership, and our whole philosophy is this: your space is your brand. We specialize in spatial branding — integrating your business identity directly into your physical environment — with a deep focus on hospitality interior design, restaurant and event venue design, and commercial spaces that help businesses grow.

Today's guest is Don Niemyer, co-owner of Story Coffee Company, Colorado Springs. Don and his wife have been operating Story Coffee for just over a decade now — and Pasley Commercial Interiors has had the privilege of designing both locations. Don, for the folks at home who don't know you yet, give us a sentence or two.

Don: My name's Don Niemyer and I'm the owner of Story Coffee Company. My wife and I started it a little over ten years ago, after living in an RV for four years and traveling the nation. We became accidental minimalists — we got really good at managing a small amount of resources — and we started dreaming about how we could parlay that into something next. That ended up being what we believe is the world's first tiny house coffee shop. About 160 square feet. We like to say we're chasing simplicity.

Robin: I love that. And right in the middle of the build, I showed up.

Don: You did. I had an old friend appear and she said, "What are you going to do for your design?" And I said — because I knew everything at the time, you understand — I said, "I've just traveled the nation collecting every good idea there is. I'm going to put them all in that tiny house." And you said, "Can I just help you with that?" And I said, "I don't need no help." And you said, "Why don't you actually let me?" And thank God you did. The result was the award-winning design of the original Story Coffee tiny house café. That was over ten years ago now.

Robin: What first made you realize you wanted to run a coffee house? Not everybody wakes up knowing they want to do something that serves people on a daily basis.

Don: I'll answer it by going to the end first and then unpacking it. A couple of years ago, when we were working on our mission statement for the second location, I realized something meaningful: our mission statement does not say one word about coffee.

We work really hard at coffee. We train constantly, we're always trying to learn. But at our core, we're not a coffee organization. Our mission talks about influence — about the people we get to be a part of. The concentric circles of each other, our customers, and our community.

When I was thirty, I moved to Colorado Springs going through what I called my third-life crisis. I needed a job with low pressure, so I got one at Starbucks. And I loved it. Not because of the coffee — because I had an excuse to be in the lives of people. In coffee, if someone becomes a regular, you might see them every single day. You're riding through the ups and downs, the celebrations, the sadnesses of their life. And somewhere in that Starbucks journey, it drove deeper and deeper into my soul. I thought: I'm just going to keep doing this. It gives me a great way to be involved in people's lives in a way that's meaningful. Yes, we're going to do it well. We're going to chase excellence. But at the end of the day, it's not about the coffee. It's about the person you're serving it to.

Robin: That resonates. I don't wake up in the morning imagining how to make spaces tell stories. I wake up thinking about my clients' businesses and what we could do to help them grow. The work is the vehicle. The people are the point.

Don: Exactly. And you said that once, and then made it a tagline — and it never got old. We've had "Live Your Best Story" on our wall for eleven years now. And I never get tired of it. New customers on vacation will come in and go, "Oh honey, look — Live Your Best Story." We call it mildly inspirational. We're not here to preach. But if we can give you a little nudge...

Robin: What are you naturally great at? What skills and instincts make you good at the work you do?

Don: I walk into a room and I see everything that needs to be fixed. Like every blessing, it's also a curse — because I have to really work at appreciating and thanking. I feel those things deeply, but my eye goes straight to the coffee stain on the white table before it goes to the person who set that table up beautifully. Attention to detail. Passion for excellence. You know the buzzwords. Any small business owner has to have some of that.

But then there's this other thing I've been entertaining myself with lately. I call it embarrassment. I don't want to look stupid. I want this thing to look good. And when I coach my team, I'll say, "Aren't you embarrassed about that? Because you should be." Embarrassment might be a superhero power.

Robin: That's a first. I'm going to remember that — it's an angle.

Don: And then there's staffing. I think of it like a football team. You gotta have a quarterback. But I don't need two quarterbacks — I need somebody who can catch the ball. Different people have different skills. And we try to keep that in mind when we're hiring.

Robin: I completely identify with that. Building the right team isn't just filling a role — it's a human being with many parts, and you're building something that works together as a machine. One of our goals is joyfulness. I want my team to have joy in what they're doing because they spend more hours there than anywhere else. And the key is finding what's naturally in them, not forcing the wrong shape into the wrong hole.

Don: It's a both/and. On one hand: this is who we are. My mentor once told me to stop saying "I want this and I want that." He said, "It's the Story Coffee way. This is how Story Coffee does it." So we hold that up constantly. That standard doesn't slip. And at the same time, every employee is unique. It's our job — while holding the standard — to recognize who they are, what they're good at, and what motivates them. Some people are driven by money. Some by appreciation. Some by growth. You have to pay attention to that individual and speak their language. That's one of the hardest things about leadership.

Robin: When clients refer Story Coffee to someone, what do they say? What are you always creating for people beyond just the coffee?

Don: There are levels to it. I used to tell my consulting clients: understand the top three reasons people come through your door. Number three is your coffee. Number one is just location — you're in their neighborhood, they're going to try you out. But number two? Human connection. People will put up with not-great coffee if they genuinely like the person serving it.

I literally had a conversation this morning with two regulars who like to pop around to other shops in town. And they said they stopped going to one of them. I asked why. They said, "They hired people we just don't like. Those people don't pay attention to us." They love the coffee there. It's closer to their house. Doesn't matter. The personal experience is why they don't go back.

So what we work hard at is making sure our customers feel the care we have for them. We call it "ring them up last." At some shops you walk in and it's immediately: boop, what do you want, boop, what else, boop. McDonald's checkout energy. We don't do that. We have the human connection first. We make sure we're aligned, make sure they feel seen. When they're nodding — yes, we're on the same page — then we bring out the mechanism to take their money. And we're going to get that money, believe me. But the human connection comes first.

Robin: Feeling seen. Feeling appreciated.

Don: Yes. And that takes me to something I love talking about — the Four Levels of Hospitality.

Everybody uses that one little tool: "Got any fun plans for the weekend?" I tell my team — that's fine, do it if you can't think of anything better. But understand: that's the lowest level. The only thing worse is not saying anything at all. If you can say the exact same thing to absolutely anybody anywhere — how's the weather? — you're at Level One. You've done the bare minimum.

Level Two is when you know something specific about this person. You notice the earrings that match their necklace. You're at least seeing them. It goes deeper from there. The goal is to find a way to make the person in front of you feel like they're not just one more cappuccino to make. We work at the thousand little ways to facilitate and honor that human connection. That's why people come back to Story Coffee over and over.

Robin: Who do you want coming into your spaces? Who's your ideal customer?

Don: I think of it the old way — like begets like. We like nice people. We try to be nice and therefore attract nice people. We're not a Debbie Downer shop. We want to be an up shop. You come in, how's it going, pretty good, how are you — and then move into those four levels to really see the person.

There are businesses where the thing people gather around is anger. You do you. That's not me. I don't want to spend my life being mad. I want to be around people who are at least chasing happiness, at least trying to move toward joy.

Robin: That's exactly the heart of the brand we built together. Living the best part of your story — because all of us face downturns and disappointments and sometimes real tragedy. But the focus is on living the best version of ourselves. And that was part of why the fingerprint became your rebrand. To honor the uniqueness of every single person who comes through that door.

Don: I love that piece of our story. We sat in this very room, talking about our values and what we're chasing. We had no idea how to express it visually. And then you came back with that mock-up of the thumbprint and the wood rings. We both immediately knew: that is it. That's a tangible visual expression of everything we talked about. It's been four years in August. I still never get tired of it.

Robin: What's one thing the person listening to this podcast could take away and apply to their life this week?

Don: Chasing kindness is pretty important. Be the kind of person you want to be around. I think most people are nice inside — they want to be nice. But some of us have to work harder at getting in touch with that kind person and making them the front person of the band more often. The rhythm guitarist in the back — the one who sees everything that's wrong — we need that person. The drummer in the back going, "that mess needs cleaning up" — yeah, keep him. But the person at the microphone, the loudest voice, the one leading? Let that be the kind one. The generous one. Lead with: let's press into the kind of world we all wish we lived in — because at our best, we actually do.

Robin: What's the biggest challenge you're facing in this season?

Don: For two and a half solid years now, I've been aggressively chasing one question: how do we equip, resource, train, celebrate, and hold accountable our people so that they are carrying our values the way I hope I am? How do we reproduce the vision in others so they can carry it to the community? That's the challenge.

Last year we called it the Year of Systems — we built systems to carry the weight of our values to the person who's been with us four years and the person who's been with us four minutes. This year is the Year of Hospitality. You build the systems, and then you have to push people into them. That's a whole other problem — but we're working on it.

Robin: We share that exact journey. It was just me for a long time. Everything I knew about how to serve clients, how to communicate, how to design — it was all up here. When I hired my first full-time person, my son, he would ask, "Did you say that out loud, or was that just in your head, Mom?" It wasn't until H.B. came into the firm and helped us build standard operating procedures that we could actually hire and build a team — instead of it just being me and my instincts running the whole thing.

Don: Because no matter how talented you are — and you are super talented — you can be Tom Brady. Seven Super Bowls. Greatest to ever play the game. He's still not going to be the one running a block and knocking someone to the ground. You need a different person for that. All of us, all entrepreneurs, believe in ourselves as we should. And then we have to recognize that we're not going to do everything well. We have to have other people on the team. I love what you've created at Pasley — opening places for people with different skills and letting them flourish. That's one of the greatest joys of being in business: watching someone step into something they're really good at, and just letting them shine.

Robin: Do you use any tools to understand how your team is wired when they come on board?

Don: We use a framework based on Patrick Lencioni's The Ideal Team Player. One of the ways we apply it is through anonymous peer evaluations. A couple of times a year, everyone evaluates everyone — including me. I get a score across different categories. If I think I'm the cleanest one in the shop and my cleanliness score comes back low, I can't argue with nine other people. And the flip side is equally valuable — if I've built a bias against someone because I saw them miss something once, and their peers score them consistently high, that's me being wrong. We saw it bad one time. Maybe their arm was broken. The truth is in the team's pattern, not one observation. It's been really helpful.

Robin: The Ideal Team Player. Patrick Lencioni.

Don: Yes. I kept blanking on the first name, but that's the one.

Robin: Don, where can people find you if they want to come in and experience Story Coffee for themselves?

Don: Easiest way is to just ask your maps app to direct you to Story Coffee — it'll ask which location. Downtown, we're in Acacia Park, right in the historic heart of Colorado Springs. General William Palmer gifted that park to the city when he founded it, to be the literal heart of downtown. And we've been sitting there — on wheels, technically — for over a decade now. Our second location is on the west side, in Old Colorado City, another historic district, at 28th and Colorado Avenue, closer to the mountains.

Robin: Don, thank you so much for joining me on Design to Help Your Business Grow. You are thirty-one years of friendship and every bit of the real thing. We love you, we love Story Coffee, and we will always be standing by when you're ready for location three.

Don: (laughs) We're saying two and done — but never say never.

If you need to create an unforgettable experience, then branded hospitality interior design is your secret weapon — because we don't do boring.

Design to Help Your Business Grow.
Pasley Commercial Interiors | pasleycommercialinteriors.com | Colorado Springs, CO

📍 Story Coffee Company — Acacia Park, downtown Colorado Springs | 28th & Colorado Ave, Old Colorado City
📍 Pasley Commercial Interiors — 616 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs, CO 80903