Greening Greensburg
Rebuilding Greensburg One Green Cup at a Time
Kansas town embraces sustainability goals as it recovers from a killer tornado.
BY AL AN RICHM AN
hen a devastating tornado struck Greensburg, Kansas on the morning of May 4, 2007, it killed 10 people. The town was flattened by the twister, which measured 1.7 miles wide and left a 22-mile-long path of destruction in its wake. Today, Greensburg is on its way back, gaining fame as one of the most environmentally sustainable locations in the nation, if not the world. “We realized we had a blank canvas to do what we needed,” says Steve Hewitt, city administrator. “The people rallied around the green movement and its hope for the future.” One component of the new Greensburg is The Green Bean Coffee Co., a specialty coffeehouse that opened on Oct. 23, 2009. Owners Kari and Tim Kyle were both originally from the area, but had been living in Arkansas when the twister hit. According to Kari, “The plan to open a coffee shop was formed when we learned that Tim had been laid off from his job as a salesman for a wood mill. We decided, after a family visit to Greensburg, that we would take a leap of faith and move back to our roots. Owning a coffee shop was a longtime dream of mine.” Although Greensburg’s population hovers around 800 — down from nearly twice what it was before the tornado — and might seem too small to support a specialty coffee shop, the Kyles believed just the opposite. “We didn’t see how we could compete in a heavily populated area with a Starbucks on every corner. And we knew that Greensburg is ideally located on U.S. Highway 54, the main route between Wichita and Dodge City. We counted on lots of transient traffic.” From the start, the Kyles wanted Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) of Waterbury, Vermont, to be their roaster. Nevertheless, says Kari, things just didn’t work out during the run-up to the shop’s opening, and the couple settled on another supplier. “I never managed to get hold of the right person at Green Mountain,” she explains.
54 | July 2010 • www.specialty-coffee.com
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Everything changed just two days after The Green Bean opened its doors. “We went to the groundbreaking for a new wind farm here in Greensburg. Among those attending was Paul Comey, Green Mountain’s vice president of environmental affairs. He was there because Green Mountain, along with Kodak, Armour Homes, AT&T, and many more companies, is a sponsor of the Greensburg recovery effort.” When Comey visited the Kyles’ shop, he asked why they’d chosen the roaster they had. When he learned of the frustration they’d encountered prior to their opening, he set about to rectify the situation. Months of correspondence followed. Comey also personally had GMCR sales rep Lisa Busch contact the Kyles. Eventually, in April 2010, GMCR became The Green Bean’s exclusive coffee vendor. The change in suppliers coincided with the shop’s move to a larger, more accessible location. “We started out in what is known as the Greensburg ‘Incubator,’” says Kari. She describes this as “a building designed to help new businesses get on their feet.” The rent was low, but the place was small and had no highway exposure. “It was a great place for us to start out, and we definitely needed it,” says Kari. Nevertheless, the new location — at the intersection of Main Street and the federal highway — is much more conducive to attracting customers, especially those from out of town. Because of the 2007 disaster and the innovative rebuilding effort, Greensburg is a mecca of sorts for tourists, as well as just for those driving between the region’s two largest cities. “We face the highway and put up a big awning that says Espresso/Breakfast/Lunch, rather than our company name,” Kari says. There is a smaller vinyl sign on one of the large windows with the shop’s name and logo. And there also is a