Tucked away in the southern Lewis County community of Vader, the Little Falls Coffee Co. is now open for business serving up fresh brewed coffee, signature drinks, dirty sodas, ice cream and more.
In fact, it has been open since June.
The Chronicle visited the coffee shop over the weekend to learn more about the new business, owned by Ashton Service, who initially moved to Vader along with his parents, Anson and Angela Service.
With the family already owning a vacation rental on the same street as Little Falls Coffee Co. — Vader’s A Street — they went ahead with a coffee shop idea as they believe it is one of the businesses the growing community is missing.
“When we moved to Vader as a family, we kind of looked at some of the holes in business here, and there’s a lot of holes,” Anson said. “We were like, ‘let’s start with the basics,’ and what’s the one thing that every town needs? That’s a coffee shop. Ashton has been working since the age of 16 to own his own business.”
Starting with selling custom facemasks during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ashton was able to save up money and got into remodeling and flipping houses, Anson stated.
“And then from that, he bought his own house just after he turned 18. He used it as an Airbnb for a little bit and decided he wanted to sell that, and he used the money from that to build this coffee shop from the ground up,” he said.
Building the business was not used as a metaphor, either, as the lot where Little Falls Coffee Co. is located was empty before, and both Anson and Ashton built the entire structure.
“That was a lot of work. We started in April of 2025,” Anson added.
Despite being entirely new, they gave it the look of an old wild west-style building to match their Airbnb, which they remodeled to look like an old saloon. Little did they know, they were also abiding by existing Vader city code.
“The leaders of the town, quite a few years ago, established a code right there on A Street … that you had to do a wild west theme,” Anson said.
To match the wild west theme, a wooden cowboy statue named “Sheriff Joe Little” stands guard at the coffee shop's entrance.
“Joe is for ‘cup of Joe,’ and ‘Little’ is for Little Falls. So Sheriff Joe Little. We got a lot of input from people in town, so we did a culmination of a lot of different names people came up with, that was kind of fun,” Anson said.
Little Falls Coffee Co. is also an ode to Vader’s original name, Little Falls, which was changed officially in 1913. The lounge inside also features many old-time antiques on display, along with photos from throughout Vader’s history.
As for the coffee, beans are sourced from Noble Coffee Roasting in Ashland, Oregon. Ashton chose Noble’s beans after doing research on coffee roasters in the region and getting recommendations from local coffee enthusiasts.
“He’s very specific about what he brings in, and as a result, we’ve had actual professional coffee roasters come in to try and say, ‘Wow, this is the best coffee in two or three counties around here,’” Anson said.
Along with freshly brewed coffee and coffee-based drinks, customers at Little Falls Coffee Co. can also get Red Bull and Lotus Plant Power energy drinks, along with custom energy drink creations. Customers can also get sodas and dirty soda drinks.
The shop has also started to offer donuts from the Castle Rock Bakery and burritos from Burrito Bros in Centralia, and most recently also added ice cream to the menu.
“He priced everything like pre-pandemic prices, really low,” Anson added.
The Services are using Little Falls Coffee Co. as a new event center in Vader as well for “after hours” events, and have already hosted a book reading event with a local author among other events.
“Recently we had a Bigfoot after hours event, and we absolutely packed the house,” Anson said.
The Little Falls Coffee Co. is located at 608 A St. in downtown Vader. Currently, hours of operation are Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday — though hours are subject to change in the future.
For more information including updates on future “after hours” events, follow the business on Facebook at https://tinyurl.com/2rmbu843 or visit its website at https://littlefallscoffee.com.
