SOUTH WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. – Lauren and Juan Vargas were being presented with the opportunity of a lifetime.
All they had to do was answer the phone.
"I started getting these 202 area code phone numbers [around Jan. 4-5] with very vague messages being left, and it very much seemed like they were campaign kind of calls,” Lauren Vargas recalled Monday.
“So then at one point the next day, Juan and I were sitting next to each other and his phone rang. And he goes, ‘This 202 number has been calling me pretty aggressively.’ And I said, and I quote, ‘Maybe you should answer it. What if it's like, Joe Biden, and he wants to use the coffee shop for a campaign event?’”
They both laughed, and then Juan answered the phone. And while it wasn’t President Joe Biden on the other end of the line, it was the White House — Joy Ngugi from the White House Office of Digital Strategy, specifically.
“And I said, ‘Excuse me, did you say Joy from the White House?’” Juan Vargas recalled, laughing.
“And she said, ‘Yes, this is Joy from the White House.’ And I said, ‘I'm sorry. I know this is really silly. But I have to ask you to repeat yourself a third time. Because I've never received such a phone call.’”
That set in motion a whirlwind seven days that saw numerous visits from the U.S. Secret Service and culminated with Lauren and Juan, owners of Nowhere Coffee Co., playing host to the president and other dignitaries, including Gov. Josh Shapiro, U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, D-Lehigh Valley, and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey.
Introductions were made in that order Friday, along with Isabel Guzman, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, as an entourage entered their shop on Main Street in Emmaus.
“At that point, I don't remember much,” Juan Vargas said.
“I just kind of blanked out because, honestly, you know, it's the president of the United States.”
‘What do we need to do to help?'
Nowhere Coffee Co. - West End planted its roots at the corner of Tilghman Street and North Cedar Crest Boulevard — where Allentown meets South Whitehall Township — in February 2022.
The year before, both Lauren and Juan had walked away from their corporate careers during a period dubbed “The Great Resignation” — an economic trend in which employees voluntarily resigned from their jobs at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was a huge leap of faith and a loan from the Small Business Administration that made Nowhere somewhere.
“We worked our whole lives really hard and we put everything that we had worked for on the line, and the SBA saw an opportunity in us and matched that and we were able to launch our business,” Juan Vargas said.
Months after opening, they found a way to turn that business into a shared space to support other entrepreneurs.
That mindset and culture led to an opportunity to open a second location for Nowhere Coffee Co. inside of a shared space with South Mountain Cycle in Emmaus.
It was the shop Biden walked into last Friday to highlight an example of small business success on Main Street USA.
“Once we clarified that it was the president of the United States coming to the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, we said, ‘Absolutely. What exactly do you need? This is a historical event that could benefit the entire community. What do we need to do to help?” Juan Vargas said.
‘We had a great day with the president’
The Vargeses knew Biden was just kicking off his re-election campaign — and wondered if the White House had ambitions to turn the president’s visit into a full-blown event complete with a stump speech.
It was something they weren’t interested in.
“That was my first question,” Juan Vargas said. “‘I said, What is this? What do you mean by event? Are we talking about a campaign event with a big speech, or are we talking about a presidential visit? Right?
"Because I'm not necessarily interested in exposing our staff to what's happening out there right now (politically). We want to keep it positive, and we were making sure that’s what we were aiming at here, and it was an actual visit.”
Every time someone starts a small business, it’s an act of hope. Lauren and Juan, two Pennsylvanians who had the determination to start a small business, embody that hope.
— President Biden (@POTUS) January 14, 2024
It’s the American story – right here in Lehigh Valley and in communities making a comeback nationwide. pic.twitter.com/KnNTJGKHuc
And while they were playing host to the president, it turned out he was the one who made them feel right at home.
“It’s so crazy to say we had a great day with the president,” Lauren Vargas said.
“He was very easy to talk to. He was very easy to converse with. And after we did the bike shop, and then we came through to the coffee shop, he met everybody, and then we sat down and talked to him privately for at least 30 minutes. That half-hour flew by.”
Asked about what they discussed, a few things were top of mind.
“We talked a lot about mental health in the workplace, which is not surprising,” Lauren Vargas said.
“He asked, ‘Do you have trouble getting employees? Like, do you have trouble getting folks to work for you?’ And we talked about how we don't and, you know, part of that reason is, I think, because of the environment that we create amongst our staff. And you know, that mental health is really at the core of that.”
Their care for employees not only led to early success and an expansion into Emmaus, but to a new roastery in Trexlertown that will be used for roasting and business operations.
“We were scared out of our minds. I was scared out of my mind the entire time,” Juan Vargas said of the venture. “The capital was tough, but we took the risk and it worked out.
“We were very clear on how we wanted to grow in the Valley. We wanted to stay in Lehigh County and that's where we wanted to call home. And we're kind of just there right now, you know, so we're going to expand into the roasting business because it's been part of what we wanted to do from the beginning.
“Like we told the president — we’re just a small business and you don't have unlimited funds, but you do have a lot of dreams.”
The visit with the president not only felt like a dream, it pushed them to a different kind of reality — and a spike in business.
"Sometimes going nowhere is the most important thing you will do all day," the couple posted on Instagram on Monday afternoon. Their shops were closed — after shuttering early over the weekend — due to "the amazing support."
"There are plenty of other amazing eateries and shops in Emmaus that you should check out instead," they said, using the hashtag #presidentialsupplyanddemandproblems while encouraging everyone to support small business.
