Hello everyone, this is Tyler Rogers, the owner of Far Out Espresso. With a heavy heart I would like to inform everyone that Far Out Espresso will be forced to close our location in front of Kroger, with our last day being Sunday November 13. Unfortunately, this is an announcement I am forced to make due to restrictions imposed on us by Joe Kane of The Georgetown-Scott County Planning Commission and Jim Burgess of the Georgetown-Scott County Building Inspection Office. They have told us if we would like to remain in business at our busy Kroger Marketplace location, we will be required to remove our gift shop and drive thru entirely, which would financially cripple us and force us to lay off at least half of our staff.

I opened for my first day of business alongside my close friend Luis Aguilar less than a week after we graduated from Scott County High School 3.5 years ago. Running this business has been the adventure of a lifetime ever since. My team and I started selling our handcrafted espresso’s out of a rusty vintage horse trailer we rebuilt and nothing but a couple plastic lawn chairs and a small table for our patrons to sit at. CJ May, my first landlord leased our original spot to us across from another great local business, Sunshine Grow Shop for practically nothing. I cannot thank Mr. May enough for his generosity and willingness to help me make my dream a reality. He is a good friend of mine now and someone I will always look up to as a man of great character and a brilliant businessman.

From that location we have grown immensely. Far Out Espresso has employed nearly 40 different amazing baristas from then until now, and my team and I have served well over 85,000 drinks to the Georgetown community. We launched our own brand of CBD, turned an old barn into our funky mural covered gift shop, hosted countless Far Out Friday events, and even got to share our passion for espresso on TV! Somehow we were able to survive the COVID pandemic, which unfortunately cost Georgetown lots of treasured local eateries. I’ve made friendships that will last a lifetime, have enough stories to tell for the rest of my life, and most importantly met the love of my life, my Fiance Grace.

When our original location began development, we had to look for a new place to call home. Our dream location, the spot in front of Kroger we are now located, miraculously became available and our current landlords Matt Welch and David Lusby gave us the opportunity of a lifetime to serve our coffee at what we believe is one of the best spots in Georgetown. We expected the move to be a smooth transition, given that we had operated with a drive thru in a gravel lot for over three years, and six months with our new gift shop. Before we even opened our doors at our new Kroger Marketplace location, we were immediately hit with complaints from the city over our electric system, and a little known local small business hero named Rob Jones of Rob Jones Electric stepped in and helped us make our setup compliant. In the first month at our new location, we nearly doubled our business and for the first time began turning a sustainable profit. Not long after that, we had undercover corporate competitors come into our shop asking a slew of targeted questions, and within a couple weeks had inspectors from all over the state showing up at our door to investigate a variety of claims and complaints against us, many of which were completely false. The last inspector to show up at our shop was the state building inspector, who walked inside our gift shop and told us he saw no issues with our setup and would be reporting this determination back to the state building inspection office. These have been some of the most stressful months of my career with Far Out Espresso, but it seemed the inspections and complaints would finally come to an end.

A few weeks later, Joe Kane of The Georgetown-Scott County Planning Commission called our landlords and informed them that we would need to remove our drive thru and gift shop as they are violating city zoning codes. In order to continue having a drive thru, we would be required to pave our entire location. According to a direct quote from Jim Burgess of the Georgetown-Scott County Building Inspection Office, we must remove our gift shop because “This building (shed) has to follow the same building code requirements as the Kroger building next door.” meaning we would “need a structural engineer to sign off on the entire structure”, “a floor plan ensuring that the structure meets the accessibility requirements of the KBC”, and “a restroom will need to be provided, with plumbing plans approved by the State plumbing department”. I personally met with Joe Kane of The Georgetown-Scott County Planning Commission and despite the steep requests, said I would do everything in my power to bring our business into compliance.

I reached out to my landlord’s Matt Welch and David Lusby who generously offered to assist us in rectifying the large list of issues with the property. They reached out to Mr. Kane, stating that they would do what is necessary to bring us into compliance, requesting that the city allow us to continue operation as is, so we do not go out of business while they take the various steps required to make our property compliant. Joe Kane and Jim Burgess have denied this request, so we will be officially closing our doors on November 13.

I am planning to do whatever I can to revive Far Out Espresso in another location, whether that be in Georgetown or Lexington. In moving to this location, we incurred a substantial amount of expenses, took out loans, and put thousands of dollars into upgrading our trailer, gift shop, electric, equipment, and inventory. Whereas this location is doing very well, we are still a long way from digging ourselves out. I have poured my life's savings into this company, and worked second jobs in order to support the place over the years when we weren’t able to make enough to support our team and expenses. I will be starting a gofundme which we will use to try and recuperate some of our losses and generate enough funds to continue serving our drinks in a new location. I appreciate anyone able to contribute to keeping our dream alive, and we appreciate any and all support we can get while we serve the Georgetown community from now until November 13.

Please share this post so we might get some attention on this situation before it is too late. I appreciate everyone in the Georgetown community who has given us their business, support, friendship, and love over the years. It’s been a wild ride and the team and I here at Far Out Espresso hope somehow we will be able to continue serving the drinks we love to the people we love.

Best Regards,

Tyler Rogers