Veteran Returns Home to Rural Community, Marching to a 'Route Step' as Farm and Coffee Shop Grow
Nearly 25 years ago, Gail Wege joined the military to see the world. Growing up on a farm in Onaga, Kansas, Gail recalls, “I wanted to get out, I wanted to explore, I wanted to see something new.” After she graduated from K-State, she was excited to see where her first duty station would be, only to discover she would not be going far. “My first duty station was in Fort Riley, Kansas.” She laughs, “So I went absolutely nowhere, just went down the road.” Her 20-year military career did take her around the world, however, with duty stations in South Carolina and Washington, and deployment to Iraq. As her military service came to a close, Gail decided to return home to Onaga. But she never imagined her next career steps would lead to entrepreneurship.
Gail and her husband were eager to raise their children on a farm, giving them a childhood experience and values similar to hers as a child in Onaga, Kansas.
After her retirement, she and her family moved onto a farm in Onega, and Gail began to take classes at K-State to become a Special Education Elementary teacher. “I was just shy of getting my student teaching degree, and then Covid hit,” says Gail. A parent of four children, she and her husband were forced to adapt to the challenges presented to them. Gail decided to homeschool her children that year, a decision influenced largely by the fact that her oldest daughter has down-syndrome and a compromised immune system.
In order to continue earning income from their farm during the pandemic, the family started using an online service to sell their products, such as beef, eggs, goat milk, soap, among others. As Gail watched online conversations of farms similar to theirs, she noticed more and more farms expanding beyond e-commerce and into brick and mortar. “I was like, ‘Oh, that’d be cool to have a place, with a window to sell your stuff, a place for people where can come in,’” says Gail.
In downtown Onega, an old hardware store sat empty for nearly six years after the death of the previous owner. The store owner’s spouse did not know what to do with the space, but Gail saw an opportunity for their farm’s storefront. Soon they struck a deal.
After purchasing the old hardware store, Gail knew building her new storefront would take a lot of work. “It was built in the early 1880’s, so it has a lot of character, a lot of structure, and a whole lot of work to do with it,” says Gail. They identified a location for a coffee shop within the building, which they decided to call the Coffee Barn. Not long into their renovation process, however, they discovered a concrete pad below that portion of the store, which prevented them from plumbing it. Being the entrepreneurs they are, they pivoted and moved the coffee shop to the front of the second half of the store. “This worked out pretty well because all the big windows are up front so everybody can see what we are doing and who is in here,” says Gail.
The timeline from purchase to renovation to opening was barely three months, September to December 2021. As their online business morphed into brick and mortar, Gail saw opportunity for growth. But she needed capital. She made a quick business plan to apply for a loan through Pottawatomie County Economic Development, for which they were approved. Everything was quickly coming together to open their new store. “The espresso machine was put in on a Friday afternoon, and we opened that Sunday to a crowd of close to 200 people.”
Gail working the coffee bar at the Route Step Farm Coffee Barn.
During their opening weekend in Onaga, the town celebrated an annual festival called Christmas Frenzy, during which the town closes Main Street and allows vendors to sell their products, along with offering horse and carriage rides and other activities. Gail decided to put Santa Claus in the store, thinking they might attract five to ten people to come in to see Santa. The results exceeded her expectations as she lost count of her visitors.
The learning curve for running a coffee shop was steep, but Gail was ready for the new challenge. “I had never touched a coffee machine in my life, and I didn’t know what I was doing.” But she mastered it through numerous YouTube videos and the same grit and commitment to learn and succeed no matter what, a skill she learned on her Onaga farm and which took her around the world in her military career.
At the center of the farm and coffee shop is Gail’s love for family and community. Above the hardware store is a 3,000 square foot apartment, where Gail’s parents live. Gail’s mother is a crucial employee for the coffee shop. “My mom is famous in Onaga for her baking, so we have a lot of cinnamon rolls, fresh baked breads and bierocks that go out of here. We probably made close to 2,000 bierocks in the last year,” says Gail. She features a local author in the store, giving her the chance to sell her books, and also displays her sister’s T-shirts, along with her nieces’ jewelry. “A couple of other people come in and sell their stuff, and I’m like, ‘That’s fine, the more the merrier.”
The Route Step Farm Coffee Barn creates a crucial space for community meetups and get-togethers, including a rousing game of pitch, pictured above.
The combination of Gail’s experiences around the world, along with her commitment to her community’s success, gives her a unique eye for opportunity in her beloved hometown. After she returned to Onaga after being gone nearly 30 years, she noticed the community needed something to build it back up. With only two event spaces in their town, Gail envisioned she could be part of the solution, to create a space for people to gather. Recently they had the opportunity to purchase the building next door to the coffee shop, conveniently connected to the coffee shop through swinging doors. Gail’s vision for this new location is to become a mini-rental type venue, similar to the Ironclad Coworking Event Space in Manhattan and Wamego. Gail is in the early stages of renovating the new location. Once they are able to open the doors to this new location, the options are endless. “From my math, we can fit up to 50-100 people in there, and we will be able to have baby showers, bridal showers, Christmas parties, reunions and much more,” says Gail.
After less than a year in business, Gail is already eyeing new opportunities, and she is looking at expanding her capital access through Grow Kansas to fund the new rental location and add solar panels to the roof above the coffee barn. “Having solar will help offset a lot of the electrical costs. And it’s something new in town that maybe some of the other businesses will pick up on and see that it’s a good thing. It’s good to go green,” says Gail.
Gail always keeps her biggest goal in front of her: to exemplify to others that when you work hard, opportunities arise. “If you put out 10% effort, you are going to get 10% back, but if you put out 100% effort, you’re going to get 100% in return,” says Gail. This mindset has been one of Gail’s main goals to demonstrate through her business and to her community. She has worked in countless ways to give back to her community. “We work a lot with the grade school here. I am trying to start an entrepreneur program through the school where students can come into a business and do a hands-on work study program and rotate throughout town,” says Gail.
She credits her military experience with the values she still holds for herself and works to pass on to her children. “The ethics the military teaches, with loyalty, duty, responsibility, and personal courage, really feeds into my beliefs, what I want to give back to the community and what I want to teach my kids,” says Gail.
She outlines how her Army values play out in her daily life as a parent, community member and entrepreneur. “You have to be loyal to your customers, you have to have the right mindset, you have to be dutiful to get up and work every day. Selfless service, as you have to be ready to work all the time, because after work I go home to do chores with my kids. Personal courage, to jump out of my comfort zone and start something I had no idea what I was doing with.” Gail adds, “Honor, because I love doing this for my community, myself, and my family.”
Join Gail and the Onaga community for this year’s Christmas Frenzy in downtown Onaga on December 4, where you can expect to find Santa Claus again at his annual post inside the Route Step Farm Coffee Barn.