The story of Drew and Stacy Long of Dallas is a study in playing the long game (pun kind of intended, I guess). The now-seasoned entrepreneurs cut their teeth slinging beans in seemingly every Starbucks they could find between NEPA and their college town in Ohio. They worked in coffee. They’ve organized travel around coffee. In short, while both make their living in the supply chain game, they’re really just a pair of coffee nerds in love.

The high school sweethearts hadn’t strayed far from their Wyoming Valley roots before that familiar NEPA epiphany struck. Where are we going? Why would we leave? We have literally everything we need here. And, just like that, Drew, originally from Plains, and Stacy, from South Wilkes-Barre, finished up college, got hitched and bought their own coffee shop in Downtown Wilkes-Barre. You’d know it as Pour Coffee House.

The Longs purchased Pour as a side hustle in 2019. And in a matter of months, the entire world flipped upside down and inside out. Cue ominous violins and inspiring montage of people grinding coffee beans and steaming milk. They worked through it. The community showed up. The coffee spoke for itself and the rest was history. Well… sort of. In the winter of 2023, the ever-hustling parents of three opened Drip Coffee Company, a super unique drive through coffee stop in Downtown Pittston.

We caught up with the intrepid pair at their OG coffee haunt in Wilkes-Barre. And with seemingly more energy and enthusiasm than a pair of teenagers hopped up on triple shots of espresso, they explained their love for all things local and homegrown. Of course, we hit em’ with a little bit of that Why NEPA? as well.

How long have you lived in NEPA?

Drew: Since 1987.

Stacy: Technically, I was born in Ohio. So, I would have to say since about 1990.

What do you love about your town?

Drew: Well, let’s just get it out there – the pizza and wings (laughs). Like if you travel anywhere else and try some pizza, you’re kind of like, “eh.” The pizza is legit here. Nobody else does it like we do in NEPA.

Stacy: Yeah. So, it’s definitely the food, but we’ve always said we were NEPA lifers. We love the seasons. Winter is a little long, but we do love all the seasons.

Drew: It’s just nice to be close to bigger cities, but not actually be a huge city. We really don’t have long commutes. Everything is like 15-20 minutes away. There’s so much upside to living here. The cost of living is so reasonable. And, of course, we love the people. The support of the community has been awesome.

What’s your favorite NEPA restaurant?

Drew: Oh boy. Ok. If I had to go by category, like fine dining would be, I don’t know, Fire and Ice. Then like for more casual, we’re talking Breaker Brewing. And then there’s like best salad. We’re always getting salads.

Stacy: Oh, Red Leaf! We love Red Leaf. We’re there like once a week.

Drew: We’re also at Canteen Central all the time.

Stacy: Ok, but we have to pick one?… (Conferring quietly) I think we have to say Kevin’s in Kingston. Yeah. Kevin’s. That’s like up there for us (laughs).

What’s your favorite thing to do in NEPA?

Drew: Frances Slocum is a big one for us and the kids. We like the waterpark at Montage in the summer. We just had our daughter’s birthday party there. What else? I feel like we’re always going on walks.

Stacy: Yeah. We’re big on if we can get outdoors, we’re doing it. And we have kids, so anything going on that’s kid-centric, we’re there — splash pads, trampoline parks, farmers markets. Basically, if it’s going to be fun for the kids, we’re checking it out. Now, if we’re talking about like a date night for the adults, Drew and I love to go to Breaker Brewing. And it could be just sitting down with a couple drinks, maybe some music and good food – that’s what we really love to do. That’s a perfect night for us, but we don’t get many of those these days (laughs).

What’s next for you?

Drew: We definitely want to continue on this entrepreneurial path. So, we’re always looking for new opportunities. Of course, we want to continue to invest in the community. Our kids are getting to school age. That’s a big part of that investment – being involved with their school and their extra activities like piano, church, sports. It’s all about becoming more established in our community. I always think that I could be more involved in networking. I’m usually so involved with the coffee shop, or the day job, you know? I hope to connect more to the people and the area in general.

Stacy: Yeah. I think for Drew and I; the next phase of life is going to involve just continuing to expand our coffee business. And, for me, I really want to get more involved in school with the kids. This year I want to get more involved in the PTO and all that stuff. We’re really in the thick of it with our babies and our small businesses.

Drew: Yeah. More specifically, with our business, we’re trying to become more invested with King’s College. We’re kind of unofficially known as the King’s coffee shop. So, we’re trying to get more involved in their campus events. We’re looking into putting together more deals for the students and really becoming the King’s spot.

Stacy: Drew always makes fun of me because I’m like the daydreamer and he’s the realist. I have a long list of all the new things I’d like to implement here at Pour and things I want to do at Drip, but Drew’s always there to kind of level me out and say this is what we can actually do (laughs). We have a ton of ideas for down the road that we want to roll out. We have a lot of fun with it. We’re always bouncing ideas off each other and the kids always have these adorable ideas. We have a little, tight knit unit and I guess what’s next is that we’re just in it, you know? And I don’t see us going anywhere anytime soon.

Where do you see NEPA heading in the future?

Stacy: One thing we always say is that whatever the City of Pittston is doing, is exactly what every town in NEPA should be doing. We just love what they’ve done with the downtown there.

Drew: We need leaders, like Mayor Lombardo in Pittston, with long-term vision. You can tell when a town has a plan for the next five, ten years. They’re doing things, you know? Not to necessarily keep it focused on Pittston, but I know some people who are building houses in or near Pittston. They see it as an up-and-coming town. We can definitely use more local community investment like that. And we need to continue to bring in these larger businesses and create more job opportunities. We have all these talented kids here at these local colleges, and we want to make sure that we’re doing enough to keep them here. Our low cost of living really goes a long way toward helping with that. So, I definitely see it moving in that direction. And, as your mayor, I… (laughs). No. Totally kidding.

Why NEPA?

Drew: Well, for starters, NEPA was so underserved – especially Luzerne County. So, like we would go to Virginia, and there were at least two local coffee shops in every tiny, little town. And then we’d come back home and be like, “Yeah, we need more coffee shops.” We’re talking local businesses, not chains – no offense to chain coffee shops (laughs). But we know that people like to go to small, unique, family-owned coffee shops. And we felt there was a big need for that here — especially in Wilkes-Barre and Pittston. And probably Dallas. And maybe Mountain Top (laughs).

Stacy: That’s the dream, right. But I will say this, growing up, I worked at a local ice cream shop – Snack Shack. I worked there for a very long time. Actually, that job was one of the main reasons I wanted to become an entrepreneur. If I could have, back in the day, I would have bought that place. I loved everything about that job. And while working there, I was able to get a glimpse into the local business community and what it was like for great business owners like that to be able to provide an opportunity to a kid like me and the other girls that worked there. So, the fact that Drew and I are grounded here, and we’re now able to provide that same opportunity to people in the area with this shop (Pour) and Drip, it makes me proud. I’d think that our employees really love their jobs, and they enjoy what they do. I don’t know. It’s just nice to be able to give back to the community – whether it’s through providing jobs, or just a cool place to hang out and grab a coffee. That’s a big one for us. Like when our kids grow up, we’d love for them to have that job, as a teenager, that they just love to work at.