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While traditional coffee shops partner their brews with pastries or other breakfast menu items for sale, Tony and Ashley Bledsoe of Centralia decided their coffee shop — Vagabond Coffee PNW — should offer something that aligned more within their interests.
Not only can customers get a wide variety of coffee, tea and macha drinks brewed with a scientific mindset to ensure product consistency, but they can also pick up a new house plant, as The Chronicle discovered on Wednesday, Dec. 31.
Vagabond began life as a mobile coffee catering cart, wandering from event to event just as its namesake describes. The Bledsoes had been running their cart for around six years after moving to Centralia in 2013, but last year decided to give the business a brick-and-mortar home.
“Ashley has a green thumb, and initially we thought of opening just a really small grab-n-go-type spot,” Tony said. “But when this spot opened, and we live in the neighborhood, we thought it’s a good opportunity for her — she has a retail nursery license — to sell some tropical house plants. We always keep a lot of the staples, but we also try to stock really unique, interesting and fun plants.”
Vagabond Coffee is located at 604 W. Main St. in Centralia. It has been open for just over a year now, having opened its doors in November 2024.
Originally, Tony and Ashley were from the Spokane area, but work and college led them westward to Olympia, and eventually to Centralia’s Edison District. Their love for coffee started even before they got married 15 years ago, when they both went down an "espresso rabbit hole.”
“We started as hardcore enthusiasts, just enamoured with the science of it,” Tony said.
Admittedly, the birth of the Vagabond Coffee cart around six years ago was a way for them to pay for nicer espresso equipment, which they now have with a commercial La Marzocco espresso machine.
Tony’s focus on the scientific aspects of brewing coffee goes into the cups they brew.
“Espresso is the hardest method to brew coffee. There’s so many variables with espresso, that the sort of Excel spreadsheet, very objective-type sciencey kind of guy I am, was enamoured by that. We like messing around with changing brew temperatures, pressure profiles, those kinds of things, to see what kinds of effects they have on coffee,” said Tony.
Even the water used to brew is processed to ensure both purity and consistency, as Vagabond Coffee has a reverse osmosis water filtration system in-house.
“Then we do re-mineralization, with the specific minerals that are good for the equipment and good for the coffee,” Tony added.
Their espresso brewing system is also adjusted daily depending on the weather’s temperature and humidity level.
As for the coffee itself, Vagabond’s beans come from friends of the Bledsoes who run DOMA Coffee Roasting Company in Post Falls, Idaho.
“They’re really focused on ethical sourcing, sustainability and quality roasting. These are the kinds of people who have the relationships with the farmers and growers,” Tony said. “In some cases with certain coffees, they can tell you who grew the coffee, what elevation, all that stuff. Really, coffee nerd-type stuff.”
Vagabond Coffee PNW is open from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday through Sunday and closed on Monday and Thursday.
For more information, message the business on Facebook at https://tinyurl.com/44nrbwa9 or on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/vagabondcoffeepnw/.
