Lyle Coffee: This Veteran Owned Cafe Has a Heart for Local Flavors and Faces
Lyle has a new coffee shop!
The outside of the new coffee shop.
By Cole Goodwin
Lyle, WA, November 22, 2023 – Lyle Coffee is an unexpected delight from start to finish, built inside Lyle’s Old Post Office (1950) on Hwy. 14 and 5th Street, Lyle Coffee pairs French Quarter aesthetic, and southern hospitality with delicious locally roasted French press coffee, carefully curated pastries and breakfast and a punk rock playlist filled with girl power bands like Le Tigre and Bikini Kill that are sure to get your morning off to a roaring good start.
The Cafe has a cozy, living room like feel that feels both comfortable and luxurious right away.
But perhaps the most unexpected delight of the shop is the owner herself. Disabled veteran Cynthia Hayes is an eclectic sort; she knits; she plays Xbox; she listens to punk, and she is invested in giving back to her community.
When I enter the shop for the first time she greets me with a bright smile. Her eyes are soft and I’m deeply struck by the fact that she seems genuinely happy to see me.
“Coffee is free your first time in,” she offers attentively as I nod my head along to the music.
The menu is simple and affordable.
This isn’t the kind of coffee place where you can order an iced vanilla caramel macchiato. Cynthia isn’t trying to become the next Starbucks. Instead, she’s focused on doing one thing really well: freshly brewed, locally roasted, French pressed coffee, with your choice of milk (soy, hemp, almond or dairy) and sugar.
Also on the menu are fresh fruit, quick oats with toast, soft, medium, or hard steamed eggs with toast, a variety of fruit juices, and chocolate milk. But what really catches my eye are the pastries and loaf bread curated from the best local gourmet bakeries.
Soft steamed eggs and toast.
A collection of curated pastries from all over the Columbia River Gorge.
I order a coffee and a Bavarian cream pastry and sit down at one of the high chairs at the counter while Cynthia floats about preparing my breakfast.
I’m struck by the fact you can get a light breakfast here for just $4-$8. I asked her about it.
“The prices are a part of being inclusive. I’m not trying to pay the bills with this Cafe. So, I tried to make it so you can get a healthy breakfast for $4-8. Just so everybody can get a solid meal under them. Just something small, something simple,” Cynthia tells me.
A basic breakfast at Lyle Coffee.
Fresh fruit for $1.
Cynthia tells me that the cafe is her way of giving back to the community, by providing a safe space for the marginalized to gather, a welcoming space fro the the community to enjoy one another’s company.
On top of that she plans to turn the cafe into community good by using profits to support Lyle teachers.
Once she recoups her opening costs and starts making some profit she plans to set a portion of proceeds aside for the ELSIE League.
ELSIE stands for Lyle’s Education League in Support of Intellectual Excellence. It draws attention to teachers’ personal financial burden in providing classroom resources and education tools for their students, and it helps generate financial support to offset this burden to teachers, by putting cash in their hands. Since January 2023, the ELSIE League has distributed $1,375 to 8 Lyle School teachers.
I order a coffee and a Bavarian cream pastry and sit down at one of the high chairs at the counter while Cynthia floats about preparing my breakfast.
Coffee served in vintage milk glass.
I’ve barely glanced around the room when she sets down a vintage gold rimmed milk-glass coffee cup in front of me and fills it with coffee, a small pitcher of milk, a sugar bowl, and my pastry in front of me. It all looks and smells great. It only takes one sip of coffee and one bite of flakey, sugary goodness for me to know I’ll be back here again soon.
A Bavarian cone entices from the pastry case.
As a collector and appreciator of fine china and vintage tea/coffee service items I have a nerd moment examining the cup. I ask her where she got them. She tells me she set out to purchase everything locally when possibe. And she did, from contractors that helped to renovate the Cafe space to the cups, which she found at Mike’s Antique’s across from the Lyle Market.
Cynthia and I chat while I sip coffee. It’s a delicious dark espresso roast with deep chocolate notes that hit the spot.
I find her fascinating.
I keep asking her for more details about her life, and the more she tells me the more questions I have.
Who is this woman with a military family upbringing and a career as an air traffic controller? She’s owned a machine shop and is a press on nail designer. And now she has transitioned into a cafe owner with good taste in punk rock?
“I knew I wanted to come to Lyle,” she said. “I was familiar with the area when it came time to sell my home in Portland and fully retire. I wanted to get out of the city. I had my eye on this place, it was just a touch out of my budget. It was here or High Prairie.”
Right as the time came to make a move, the price of 421 State Street fell into her budget and inspiration for the cafe struck. She would live in the back half of the business and turn her living room into a gathering space for the community.
“The vision came into my head at one time. So, the last seven months has just been coloring it in,” she laughs. “Then it was a little bit of planning, a couple of weeks and two many hours on AutoCAD.”
She points out the arts and craft basket on the shelves next to a cribbage board and some books.
“I had someone come in this morning, and her 11-year-old was getting antsy, and it was clear she wasn’t ready to go,” Cynthia said. “So, I just put some art materials in front of him, and he drew me something nice for the sketchbook, and she was able to relax for another half hour or so.”
A shelf full of art supplies and books to keep cafe goers occupied
She tells me she’s also taken subscriptions to several magazines to keep the reading material in the Cafe fresh like the pastries. On the reading menu? Architectural Digest, Scientific American, Wired, along with several others.
Six cups of coffee later, I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. But while her past and her tastes seem eclectic, some things seem to shine through in all her stories: her daring, her creative spirit, her detail oriented follow through, and her dedication to public service.
And her newest venture is no different.
From top to bottom, the shop is a collection of things Cynthia enjoys, from the pastries and bread she curates each week from the Gorge’s top bakeries to the music on the speakers, hats she’s knitted on the wall, and the benefit for ELSIE league.
Handknitted hats line a mirror near the cafe entrance.
The hats are aptly named “coffee lid’’s.
This red one was my favorite.
Even the hours are a bit eclectic: Monday through Wednesday from 6 a.m. to noon.
But that’s how Cynthia wants it, small, simple, fun, a fitting retirement project.
“It’s been a lot of fun for me,” Cynthia said. “It’s been my three dimensional art project.”
I ask her if I can photograph her in her new business and she declines.
“It’s a safety thing,” she told me lightly.
I nod. She’s just looking to get to know her community, not put her face in the news. But still, I had to share the local scoop with ya’ll: Lyle has a new coffee shop, and the blend of hospitality, simplicity, and pastries is both delicious and unexpected.
I finish my coffee and say my goodbyes.
I know I’ll be back soon for the coffee, conversation, and one of those croissants I missed this last time around.
For Lyle Coffee’s most up to date hours and menu visit LyleCoffee.com.
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