Plus they have a drive thru if you’re in a rush, daily made from scratch donuts and they’ve never attempted to put caramel in my macchiato.
VISIT LOCAL LION
Local Lion catches you by surprise, kind of like the mountain lion that wandered through Josiah Davis’ camp up on Snake Mountain several years ago.
You don’t expect it to be there—a local coffeehouse/coffee roaster nestled in between a grassy knoll and a Circle K along Blowing Rock Road near the App State campus.
It faces one of the newest student housing high rises for the school. It used to house a TCBY–if anyone remembers what that was.
And the name. It just doesn’t do much to describe much of anything in the way of coffee. Why? Why not Josiah’s Jolterium? Or a Whole Latte Local? Or, you know, something.
Perhaps that’s why I’m not running a successful coffee shop.
Oh. I’ve got it. The mountain lion up on Snake Mountain wandering through Josiah Davis’ camp. The lion was the local. The lion didn’t have to explain its presence. The lion belonged. He named his coffee shop after that lion. “That’s the local lion.” If a lion wandered through my camp and I lived, I’m pretty certain I’d name something after him (because lions are boys, of course).
Latte Lion, maybe? Anyway.
Great Taste and a Sense of Place
Unassuming. That’s the word to describe Local Lion. Unassuming. It’s Josiah Davis’ creation. An equally unassuming lifelong High Country local who wanted to establish a place that served great coffee and, more recently, a delicious variety of daily-made-from-scratch donuts.
I don’t mean “place” in the trivial sense of the word.
Local Lion is a place with a sense of place. I’m not attempting to be redundant here. What I’m trying to say is that Local Lion is, yes, a place that sells coffee and donuts (gluten free on Fridays), cortados, espresso macchiatos and cool mugs.
It’s even got a drive thru—the only high-end drive thru coffee shop worth visiting in the High Country.
But it’s also the kind of place that provides space and welcomes you to be in it, with a cup of coffee made with seriousness but not self-indulgent self-seriousness. The coffee keeps you coming back and it keeps the lights on, but it also has an incidental quality to it.
Don’t misunderstand me here. They obviously take great care with their product and craftsmanship. They import their own ethically-sourced green coffee beans, roast them in small batches in a small corner of the shop to make drip coffee varieties and handcrafted drinks for serving solo or alongside a daily-fresh-made donut or so. All the pleasing qualities you’ve come to expect of high-end coffee shops.
But there’s also a paradoxical calm—paradoxical because coffee. Paradoxical because small business. Often Josiah can be found sitting in a bar-high chair near the roaster accompanied by the neatly squared tell-tale stack of a Bible, journal, iPad.
Local Lion is a Third Place
If you’ve ever seen that show “Cheers” you kind of understand what I mean. Or maybe you remember Central Perk, the coffee shop on Friends.
Or maybe you’ve read this article https://www.jordanharbinger.com/why-you-need-a-third-place-and-how-to-find-one/ about the idea of a third place.
Work. Home. And a Third Place.
Honestly I’m just guessing here. I don’t know if Josiah would describe it in those terms. As a Third Place. But it naturally just seems to have become that—based on the number of regulars I’ve seen there over the years settled into a table and a conversation with no sign of giving up their seats anytime soon. Its location outside the natural flow of tourists.
And I really love that they know what I mean when I say “macchiato.” That says a latte.