For UNC Greensboro graduate Leah Zubke Reiner ’24, owning Ardmore Coffee in Winston-Salem is a dream come true. She and her husband, Blake Reiner, bought the decades-old shop last fall while they were not married yet and both still working toward their undergraduate degrees.
Now, the young entrepreneurs are making the shop their own. They’ve got a new logo, employees and furnishings, plus fresh coats of paint, and modern equipment.
“We had a vision for the place,” Leah says. “Number one, we want a successful business, but we also want it to be a place that people enjoy being at – somewhere people want to bring their friends or family members and just have a nice place to hang out.”
Living the dream
Leah’s vision has been growing since she was a child in Lexington, North Carolina. “Both my parents are entrepreneurs, and they own small businesses, so owning a business was always something I was interested in.”
The idea of owning a coffee shop began to crystallize when Leah got her first job at a coffee shop.
In the years since, she continued to gain experience as a barista in coffee shops through high school, then community college, and finally UNCG.
Three years ago, she began working at Ardmore, one of Winston-Salem’s oldest standing coffee shops, and about two years ago, she became manager. Blake, whom she’d known since middle school and dated for four years, also worked there.
In September 2023, though they were still students, they took up the former owner on his offer to sell the shop to them.
UNCG’s influence
Leah and Blake had more going for them than coffee shop experience when they bought the company: Both were gaining business expertise in college. Leah was a senior at UNCG’s Bryan School of Business and Economics, pursuing her bachelor’s in business administration, and Blake was studying business at another local university.
“It was tough. I was in a challenging semester right around that time, so it probably wasn’t the most ideal time to buy a business,” she says. “But being hands-on and thrown into a situation like that, we learned so much. I don’t regret a single thing about it.”
Leah adds that the Bryan School, with its emphasis on leadership, prepared her well for business ownership.
“Being an effective leader and effective manager is really important,” she says. “I don’t think I understood what goes into that until I took a few classes at UNCG.”
Leah has also relied on what she learned in marketing classes. Dr. Dianne Welsh, Leah’s Family Business course professor, taught her how to effectively conduct business with a partner or close family member. Leah found this especially helpful.
“Leah applied her understanding of the three parts of family businesses – the family, the business, and the ownership – to her purchase of the coffee shop with her fiancé,” says Welsh. “I look forward to visiting soon.”
Leah learned conflict management skills in her Conflict Communication course.
“Leah chose to write her papers on topics that directly related to her future entrepreneurial goals,” says Dr. Pete Kellett, who taught the course. “I’m confident her excellence and integrity as a student now translates into her success as a business co-owner and manager.”
“The classes I took really pertained to what I was doing in real life,” Leah says. “It worked out really well – the stars just kind of aligned.”
Early successes
And the stars continue to align for Leah.
Since she and Blake refurbished Ardmore Coffee and started marketing on social media, they’ve noticed that more people are stopping in to buy traditional and signature cappuccinos and lattes, along with baked goods.
“We always do a fun seasonal menu,” she says. “Three or four times a year, we’ll come out with a new menu of maybe four or five drinks that coincide with the weather.”
Right now, a customer favorite is a caramel black salt latte. “It’s sweet and a little bit salty, and everyone loves it,” Leah says.
A local baker makes fresh food for the shop every day – muffins, croissants, danishes, and cookies. And Fortuna Coffee of Greensboro roasts Ardmore’s coffee beans.
Leah and Blake have taken lessons in roasting, so they can prepare their own beans someday. They also have their sights set on opening more locations, but for now their focus is on Ardmore.
“That’s something that we would really like to do in the future,” she says. “We’re not even a year yet in owning the shop, so we have ideas, but nothing set in stone yet.”
Story written by Dee Shore, AMBCopy
Photography by Sean Norona, University Communications
