Pryor’s only cafe is celebrating its one year anniversary

Aug. 31 — PRYOR — Heritage Cafe, Pryor’s only coffee shop, will celebrate its one-year anniversary on Saturday.

The event will be held from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in the cafe on the grounds of Creekside Church at 1500 E. Graham Ave. Coffee tastings, live music and a raffle are on the agenda.

The cafe and the church are separate entities, said Senior Associate Pastor Neil Oldham, but their missions and resources are closely intertwined.

All Heritage Cafe employees are women, and Oldham and owner Lesslye Mason said they started the cafe to create employment opportunities for women who face barriers to employment.

“There are families in our church that run transitional homes for women coming out of prison,” Oldham said. “… I thought it was a no-brainer — like, we could use this as a tool to help women, whether that barrier to employment is prison or something else, maybe they’re aging out of foster care or they’re just young and us in the area.”

Oldham said She Brews Coffee, a coffee shop in Claremore and Tulsa that also helps vulnerable women, and helped get Heritage Cafe off the ground. He said they shared recipes with Heritage and the cafe still uses She Brews beans for its coffee.

In addition to coffee, the cafe also sells muffins, cookies, rolls, tea and hot chocolate.

Heritage Cafe Head Cathy Baker worked at She Brews before joining the Heritage Cafe team.

“God opens doors and closes doors, so here I am doing what he told me to do,” Baker said.

Case Manager Melissa Hoover, who started as a barista at She Brews three years ago, has helped train many of the women who prepare drinks at Heritage Cafe today.

Hoover said she was a drug addict and spent time in prison before getting a job at She Brews, and said the cafe was able to turn her life around.

“I love that there are more companies that buy into this idea that we need to help people get a second chance,” Hoover said.

Alyssa Chicken has been the barista at Heritage Cafe since its opening. She said the owner of Safe Passages Recovery, where she was a patient, told her about the cafe and said it might be a good fit for her.

Chicken said Baker came to her house one day to interview her and immediately accepted.

She said she likes working with the other women.

“At first, I thought it was going to be really hard to do because I didn’t think I was going to remember all the drinks and stuff,” Chicken said. “But as I got into making drinks, it’s really easier than I thought it would be. It’s a good experience. It’s a good way to get to know people in your own town.”

Mason said people who come to Heritage Cafe often start to feel like family. She said the cafe attracts old and young alike and is a safe space for people to hold Bible studies, pray and have conversations.

Baker said her customers are her family.

“I love my customers and we always have conversations,” Baker said. “One of the main conversations we have, they’re like, ‘Pryor needed something like this — a place for us to come and hang out.’

Mason said Heritage Cafe is a regular at The District’s Farmers Market in Pryor, and they often cater to community groups like schools, churches and businesses.

The cafe’s logo is a bell and is modeled after the bell that once rang at Creekside Church when it was founded in 1902. That bell still hangs in the cafe today. Mason said the name and logo honor not only the past but also the future.

“It’s the idea that there are people who have been here a long time who have grown up here, and there are new people coming in that we would like to be a part of — not just the church family, but part of the community family,” Mason said. “So it’s about taking the legacy and not only sharing it, but growing the legacy. I think there’s a lot of friendship beyond coffee.”