When Axlyn Sommer’s husband Bob forbade her from knocking down any more walls in their home to do more renovations, she needed to find something else to keep her busy. So, she decided to open a coffee shop near her home in Chatham. The building she found was over 100 years old, had holes in the floor, and was just a disaster. But Axlyn, seeing another renovation on the horizon, fell in love. That was 28 years ago.
“Coffee is our family business,” she says. “T.M. Ward Coffee was started in 1869 in Newark by Timothy and Mary Ward. When it went up for sale in 1931, my father-in-law bought it.”
Bob joined the business after college, along with his brother and uncle, and his mother handled all the bookkeeping. Then Axlyn’s brother joined the business as well. Now three out of their four children work for T.M. Ward, and even started a roasting company in Connecticut.
The original location in Newark, which her son Scott manages, also has a retail portion, but mainly handles all the packaging and the wholesale side of the business. Her other son, Jeff, roasts the beans that come from all over the world at their roasting company, and son Rob handles the internet sales. Besides coffee, they sell many other items online and in the stores such as gift baskets, wine, nuts, and biscotti.
The ladies who work in the Chatham store with Axlyn are from Chatham and they all enjoy getting to know everyone who comes in.
“I wanted an atmosphere like Cheers,” she says. “People come in and (pre-COVID) they get a hug. We talk about everything, we know everybody by name, they know us, and we can share. We need that in this world.
“The morning after 9/11, I put a note on the door that said to just come in for a hug, and a lot of people did. There are friendships that were built on that day. That’s what we’re all about.”
