This summer, Ben and Rachel Motley, the owners of Arrow Coffee Co, are taking over the old Sparrow coffee location on 4th downtown and turning it into a cocktail lounge called “Pool House.”
In an interview with Ben Motley, owner, about his vision for the project, he said, “When we first started thinking about what we could bring to downtown, we started doing a bunch of research on the history of the city and where we’ve come from. We discovered quickly that the building we were going into was built on top of the first city swimming pool. Back in 1918, the Marshall Family, who built Marshall Theater lived right next door to the pool. It served as a place for the community to come together and recreate. We uncovered lots of newspaper articles talking about school kids having days off school to swim together, and even stories about Soldiers from the early days of Fort Riley being given leave to come down and spend a day at the pool! This really connected with our business philosophy that is centered on bringing all types of people together and providing them with a way to relax and enjoy each other.”
That is the inspiration behind the name Pool House and their menu and design theme.
The vision is a non-stop pool party. They plan to serve classed-up versions of typical pool food, such as “handmade soft pretzels, gourmet hot dogs with a bunch of unique and delicious toppings, kick-ass nachos, boozy soft serve and slushees, and whole lot more.”
About Manhattan, Ben said, “My wife and I have always felt that Manhattan is an awesome city. We’ve got such a cool mix of people in different life stages and from different backgrounds. We just want to be a part of bringing fun and unique things to the people of Manhattan and keep things fresh by developing new concepts and offering new and different products.”
They are shooting to open Pool House in June, allowing the “Manhattan faithful” a first look at the concept before school starts. “They will really be the ones who we are here to serve, so it makes sense to us to give them the first look at what we are doing, at a time when the university is not in session and they don’t have to fight with students for a spot at the bar!” He also added, “We are just so excited to get this place open to party with our friends and make new ones along the way!”
They are also using Pool House to launch their mobile coffee service, Go! Arrow. They will be setting up a coffee cart on the sidewalk in front of the new space each morning from 8-12, serving with a full service espresso bar, Nitro cold brew, specialty coffee and tea drinks and fresh made pastries.
They are looking to start interviewing and hiring for bartenders and servers soon. If interested, please contact Ben at ben@arrowcoffeecompany.com. You can also keep up with the team by liking Arrow Coffee Co on Facebook.
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