12-year Pullman resident connects through coffee

If someone were to tell Tyson Feasel 10 years ago that today he’d own a coffee shop in downtown Pullman, he would have laughed.

But Feasel has owned Café Moro – a warmly lit shop where locals sip peacefully at the corner of Main Street – for nearly three years.

“I can’t imagine doing anything else,” said the 30-year-old Enumclaw native. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

Feasel took the reins of Café Moro when the previous owner left in November 2011. He had worked there for nine years.

“It was a lot of work but a ton of fun,” he said.

Starting in 2002, Feasel studied genetics at WSU for five and a half years. When he arrived in Pullman, though, he discovered a passion for brewing coffee and a connection to Pullman’s tight-knit community.

“I have a lot of customers who sit here in the morning, and I know their drink, I know their names, I know what they’re doing, what their kids are doing,” he said. “It’s nice to have a local base and a bunch of people you see every day. I get to interact with so many people and be a part of their lives and their routine.”

Before Feasel moved to Pullman, he worked as a barista in Seattle, which he said was less fulfilling than his position at Café Moro. He said the other position was only a job, not an opportunity to bond with customers.

“Here it’s, like, easier to be involved – easier to care,” he said. “It’s easier to see what you do and how it affects the people around you. In Seattle you don’t get to go to the grocery store and run into the people you serve.”

Feasel had previously worked at a gas station and at a smoke shop; he gave skiing lessons, delivered newspapers and refereed bouts of paintball.

But he found his second home in Café Moro.

“This is the only job I think I’ve been really happy with,” he said.

Barista Erin Robey said she was a regular customer before getting a job at the cafe. Now she calls the staff her second family.

Katelyn Ward, another barista, said she enjoys working in the shop’s relaxed atmosphere. Customers meet to chat or study while an indie-rock playlist murmurs in the background. There’s a brick wall behind the counter, and others are adorned with local artists’ depictions of the Palouse.

During his time there, Feasel has upgraded the shop’s Wi-Fi and installed air conditioning. He’s also taken his employees to learn brewing techniques at DOMA Coffee Roasting Company in Post Falls, Idaho, where Café Moro gets its coffee.

“We’ve tried to raise the quality of what we do,” he said. “It’s about keeping things fresh and getting people what they want.”

Feasel said he uses locally sourced products whenever possible. Café Moro also serves baked goods from Sage Baking in Uniontown.

On tap this week are two beers from Selkirk Abbey, also located in Post Falls. Additionally the cafe is serving wine from Merry Cellars Winery in Pullman.

Far into the future, Feasel hopes to own a second cafe in Pullman. When it comes to coffee and community, he said, more is more.

“If you were only making coffee for yourself, it wouldn’t be any fun,” he said.