At 6 a.m. on Aug. 20, Arrow Coffee Co. shared on Facebook that its landlord had given the business a 30-day notice to vacate the space at 1800 Claflin, which it has rented for 12 years.
Rachel Motley, co-owner of Arrow Coffee said,“It’s hard when you think you have a solid relationship with someone and then it becomes clear that there has been something bubbling at the surface, but there has been no communication about it.”
Rachel Motley said in their 12 years in the space, it has had many lives and served many different groups unofficially due to unforeseen circumstances. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when new food service standards were being integrated, Piccalilli Farms needed an industrial kitchen to prepare for markets and conduct their work. The Motleys opened the doors of their vacant cocktail lounge space to this local business.
“We’ve had conversations with our landlord about that space and they were fully aware of that use of that space and they were glad that Piccalilli Farms is a part of the Manhattan Community, and we would characterize that assumption more as a misunderstanding than anything else,” Rachel Motley said.
The Motleys said the landlord hasn’t offered any explanation about why they might be exploring other options as tenants. While the landlord of the property has remained the same over the past 12 years of Arrow Coffee’s life there, these actions feel very different than any that the Motleys have seen or experienced before.
“We’ve reached out to them, and we thought we had a trusting relationship with them, but we haven’t heard anything back from them,” Rachel Motley said.
Though the Motleys admit to there being some instances of late rent, the duo said their relationship with the landlord appeared to be one where grace and understanding were extended when accidents happen.
“We’ve been there for 12 years; it’s possible that we’ve been late on rent occasionally, but certainly not habitually, and that’s usually because I just forgot to drop the check off,” Ben Motley said.
Though still waiting to hear back on the final dissolution of their time on Claflin, the Motleys said this kind of strike to their trust is difficult to forgive.
“A blow like this is heartbreaking and trust has been broken, so the best-case scenario at this point is that the landlord lets us stay until we get our feet on solid ground, but I don’t foresee us renewing the lease at this point,” Rachel Motley said.
Ben Motley speaks of the importance and value of open communication from both sides for a truly sound and long-lasting tenant-landlord relationship.
“I can’t see this as a long-term home with the current state of our relationship with the property owner,” Ben Motley said. “We obviously want to do what’s best for our staff, we have hired people, trained them and committed to employing them and we are going to do everything we can to follow through on that commitment.”
The landlord declined to comment on this situation, and it remains unclear to the Motleys what went wrong in their tenant-landlord relationship.
There remains no formal plan to relocate Arrow Coffee to a new location; rather, the Motleys have directed their energy to their downtown cocktail lounge and intend to move their staff to the downtown location if their lease on 1800 Claflin is terminated prior to the original end date.
The impact that Arrow Coffee has had on the community is undeniable according to Isaac Mead, senior in history.
“I have friends who have worked there, and they have been just as positively impacted as the customers that go into the shop,” Mead said.
The Motley’s have countless examples of the opportunities that their business has given them to pour into people’s lives and be poured into by others in return.
“We know a family who used to bring their young kids into Arrow, and now those kids have grown up and have worked for us throughout the years,” Rachel Motley said.
“Businesses come and go; we were never going to be working in the coffee shop forever and there is definitely a time limit on how long we could do that and so if it has to end this way it will, but this business and the community that surrounds it are bigger than a physical location and it always will be,” Ben Motley said.
While the word ‘community’ gets tossed around often nowadays, Ben Motley said the word has a deeper meaning to Arrow Coffee
“Community means that you show up when it matters,” Ben Motley said. “There’s a different level of trust in a relationship when you live in a community where the same person that you buy coffee from or the same person who comes to your house to fix your sink also has a daughter in your kids’ fourth-grade class at school. When we have that kind of connection to each other, we treat each other differently, and it makes us accountable and responsible to each other. In our situation, our landlord is not a part of the Manhattan community, so that kind of treatment doesn’t enter the equation. Instead, it’s easier to dehumanize people when you aren’t sharing spaces with them.”
The original Facebook post that communicated this situation to the Manhattan community has received 138 comments from Manhattan locals and previous residents have been sharing their distaste for the landlord’s actions. This dialogue sparked the start of a petition to provide further support for the shop and the Motleys.
While the Motleys have confirmed that Flight Crew Coffee was the business that was given a tour of the space, it has been made clear that their involvement in this dispute stops there. Flight Crew ownership and management publicly shared they were not seeking a new location and that the landlord approached them about the opportunity in the space. Additionally, Flight Crew shared that they have not entered into any formal agreements for a new location, and that they were not the only business approached by the landlord of this property.
Ben Motley said he can only speculate why the landlord may be looking for a new tenant to take residency in the space at 1800 Claflin.
“The only answer that they’ve [the landlord] had for us is the phrase ‘We’re going a different direction’, we have received no direct or specific communication about why this is the route they are choosing,” Ben Motley said.
“The relationships we’ve built, the employees we’ve had and who have gone on to use their experience that they gained here to better their lives and move on to bigger and better things, that’s how we measure the value of what’s happened here, and nothing can take that away,” Ben Motley said.
David Adkins founded Arrow Coffee in 2013, but Ben Motley was approached by Adkins to join as a business partner in 2014.
“We’ve been doing business here in the community for 12 years, working at Bluestem Bistro before we joined Arrow,” Ben Motley said. “Coffee was much different back in 2013. We like to say that we helped move the ball forward on the Manhattan coffee scene. One of Arrow’s goals has always been to help educate people and invite others to appreciate coffee the way we do.”
“It is definitely lonely owning a business, and having a business partner makes it much less lonely, especially when you share a vision,” Ben Motley said.
Rachel Motley contributed to the shop for some time before she was officially named as a business partner.
“When the shop was still young, it didn’t quite meet the minimum that U.S. Foods had [for goods to be delivered to the shop], so we had to go to the grocery store to buy the things that we needed and I did a lot of that,” Rachel Motley said. “I was buying carts full of milk pretty regularly, and other patrons at the store thought I worked there so they would stop me and ask me, ‘Can you tell me where the pepperoni is?’ and I would just laugh and explain that I was shopping for a local business, not working there.”
Arrow Coffee’s bright, airy and welcoming atmosphere is attractive and inviting to students, Isaac Mead, senior in history at Kansas State, said.
“I love the quaintness of Arrow,” Mead said. “It’s the perfect place to go after a rough class or just to catch up with friends. Their baked goods are my favorites in town, too!”
The Motleys have felt the love and support from the community in each of their businesses, and they look forward to the potential their downtown location Arrow Cocktail Lounge has to continue bringing people together.
“We plan to have some wider offerings at the downtown cocktail lounge as far as grocery and food is concerned, and just bring more friends downtown to join the party here,” Rachel Motley said.
The Motleys have no plans to discontinue the events already planned for the downtown location to host at this point, and they will proceed with all regularly scheduled events.
