First Impressions
Table Of Contents
To be honest, I stumbled upon Firehouse Coffee by accident. I was enroute to the national ProPhoenix Conference in Branson, MO for work and along the drive I randomly looked for someplace to stop off along the way. I saw a few good reviews, and that it wasn’t that far off the interstate…so figured why not. It’s located in Saint James, Missouri, across the street from the local high school.
Atmosphere & Experience
Firehouse Coffee isn’t a typical coffee shop. It’s a student-operated non-profit cafe led by local high schoolers under the guidance of their art teacher Terrill Story. Terrill started this venture because he saw an opportunity to turn an old firehouse into a place where students could learn about leadership, service and entrepreneurship, while also learning to give back. This quickly turned into a hub for youth and community engagement. Student work is completely volunteer-based, which means they can keep their product costs extremely low, and they use the remaining profits to help support local and humanitarian causes. Since it’s student-run, it’s only open a few hours per day during the school year.
This coffee shop is also powered by YEP, the Youth Empowerment Project. According to their website, “The mission of the Youth Empowerment Project is to empower youth to positively impact their community. This is accomplished through education, service, grant making, and fundraising.” At its core, it’s an organization dedicated to help bring new opportunities for personal-development and giving-back to local middle and high school students.
Overall, this is one of those unique situations that really needs to be shared with the greater world. Imagine what we could do if more projects like this existed!
Austin’s Choice
Their Summer 2025 special was a Zesty Zummer ice cream lemonade (with your choice of fruit flavor). I LOVED IT. I ordered it with Banana which was a super tasty treat!
Additional Information
For more information about Firehouse Coffee, you can check out their Instagram and website:
https://www.instagram.com/firehousecoffee_yep/
https://firehousecoffeeshop-yep.weebly.com/
More about the YEP program:
https://www.cfozarks.org/what-we-do/our-programs/yep
To see the full interior and experience, check out my Instagram post!
