Dream of opening a coffee or dessert shop? This town will pay you to do so
If you’ve ever wanted to open your own coffee or dessert shop, there’s one Wichita suburb that might help you pay for the new business endeavor.
The catch? Your business must be in Haysville’s city limits.
Haysville, about 20 minutes south of downtown Wichita, is offering $20,000 incentives for people to open dining options within city limits.
“The (incentives are to) fund both our growing population and also resident demand,” Danielle Gabor, Haysville’s economic development director, said. “What I mean by that is we have several housing developments that are either underway or are on the horizon. So because of that increase, we wanted to increase our dining options.”
One incentive is for a new coffee shop with a space for entertainment.
Haysville’s sole coffee shop is Barista Blenz, a drive-through shop that does not provide seating, which is why Gabor said the city is pushing for another coffee shop. And while some Facebook comments on the city’s page raised concerns about a new coffee shop providing competition to Barista Blenz, its owner said she’s not worried.
“I understand the diversity of businesses (to) help the community grow and we’re just going to focus on us and try to be really good at what we do,” Barista Blenz’ owner Tisha Henderson said. “If they add another coffee shop, that’s awesome. ... I think competition is healthy.”
Henderson owns the coffee shop with her husband, David. Barista Blenz offers specialty drinks and Henderson said she tries to stay creative with the recipes so there’s always a variety.
“I feel like we kind of give a different coffee shop vibe. It’s not what you’re typically going to get when you go to a coffee shop,” she said.
When asked if she sees the shop expanding to include seating, Henderson said she’s not sure how the coffee shop will grow in the future.
“We don’t know where the future holds for us. We want to expand in some way, (but) we’re not sure what route we will take,” Henderson said.
What other businesses will Haysville pay for?
The city’s coffee shop initiative is one of five dining initiatives offered by the city. The others are a dessert shop, a steak house/family dining restaurant, a fast food/quick service restaurant and a franchise restaurant. The city selected these specific restaurants after gauging the interests of the community through a survey.
“That retail survey really reinforced that restaurants were needed and what types of restaurants,” Gabor said. “We really did try to listen to our residents through that survey.”
While the city had an incentive program for a coffee shop in the past, the incentive program was revived in 2022 as a more targeted program, offering $5,000 grants for the coffee shop, steakhouse and fast food initiatives. Last year, the grants were increased to $20,000, and the program expanded to include the dessert shop and franchise incentives.
The businesses will gradually be paid $7,000 from purchasing or leasing the space to 60 days after the business is open.
If leasing a building, the business will be awarded $5,000 for its first year, $4,000 for its second and third year. If the business owner purchased an existing building for the business, they will be awarded a tax rebate of 100% for year one, 75% for year two and 50% for year three. If that tax rebate ends up being less than the money awarded for leased buildings, the business owner will instead receive that award.
So far, no new businesses have been created because of the incentive program, Gabor said.
“It’s not that we haven’t talked to people, we have, (but) nobody has actually applied,” Gabor said.
You can apply for the grants on Haysville’s business development page on the website. Businesses applying for the grants must be new businesses to Haysville.
There’s also a business lease matching grant and a facade grant, both of which businesses have received in the past, Gabor said.
“We’re excited to . . . hand out some money to help businesses expand,” Gabor said.
