When she came across available space in Eureka, cafe owner Maggie Schamber said it felt like a sign to finally fulfill her coffee business dreams. Although she was scared, Schamber took the risk and eventually opened up Orange Couch Coffee House, a cozy cafe inspired by the tv show Friends.
“I always dreamt about having a coffeehouse. In my dreams, it was this cozy place, kind of this stereotype from the movies, where I’m working in a small town [that’s] not too slow, not too fast,” she said.
Schamber is originally from Poland. When she moved to America 20 years ago, Friends was her way of picking up English.
“I was living with my host family and my English was kind of there, but not there. So in the early evenings, I would sit in front of TV and watch Friends when they were re-runs, and it’s my happy place,” she said.
The cafe, Schamber says, is not exactly Friends-themed. However, some of the furniture, decor and even items on the menu are inspired by the 90s sitcom.
“No matter how much I’m changing when I’m getting older, Friends is a constant, so I wanted to have this connection to Friends,” Schamber said. “At first when I started, it was very little. And then people started liking it and getting excited. So every time I had an opportunity to add something more because I found something unique, I would do that.”
Unfortunately for Schamber, while construction had begun for the coffeehouse in July 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had followed. Schamber says she decided to keep going, so she could figure it out along the way.
“Once we opened, we had great support of the community. I started with online ordering. I did the curbside pick up. Even if someone was sick or someone didn’t want to come inside, we would just bring it to their car so they could still enjoy it,” she said.
Over the years, Orange Couch Coffee House has maintained popularity in the area. Although not everyone knows that the coffeehouse is based on Friends, Schamber says the customers still get excited when they find out.
“A lot of people do come here because of the fact that there are a lot of things about Friends and it just makes them giddy. Then others don’t know. They just kind of happen to hear that it’s a cool place and they come in and they’re like, ‘oh, my gosh’,” she said.
The coffeehouse has a couple of items that are named after Friends references, but Schamber says these drinks are usually just unique in the name; however, at the Orange Couch Coffee House, not every drink is a traditional cafe drink.
“I always encourage my baristas, ‘if you have an idea, try it, taste it, let the other employees taste it and we can go with it’, “ Schamber said. “We have ‘Jasmine’ on the menu, AKA a caramel brùlèe. The reason it’s called Jasmine is because Jasmine, a former employee, came up with the drink.”
“Owning a small business is not for those with a faint heart,” Schamber said. “But this place is something special because I met so many new people. We have so many different regular customers, maybe they were just freshly married and now they’re coming with two kids. We know their stories and they know our employees here. Those are the moments that I’m like, ‘oh, this is just what it’s supposed to be, that kind of thing’.”
