Louisa Joyce
Staff Writer
The aroma of coffee beans and fresh warm baked goods of banana, pumpkin, and rosemary nut mix wades through the air as you approach and drive up to the next window. With multiple coffee chains being around, sometimes it can be hard to decide which one to choose. USA Today created a “Top Ten list of best coffee chains across the US that are worth the hype” nominated by an expert panel and voted by readers. Beating top competitors like Starbucks, Dunkin’, and McDonald’s was the Coffee Park Airstream located in our local Winston-Salem on Reynolda Road.
The origin story of the airstream all starts with owner Duncan Priest and his early childhood.
“My love for coffee started by smelling the percolator whenever my grandmother would get up at five in the morning and start the coffee pot that lasted all day,” Priest said.
While growing up surrounded by the essence of coffee, Priest decided to make his career out of it, but unfortunately, things didn’t go to plan at first.
“When I graduated from Appalachian [State University] in 1994, I moved back to Winston and hoped to open a coffee shop, but things just didn’t work out,” Priest said. “A couple of years after that, I went into marketing, which I didn’t expect. I had a career in that for about 15 years.”
The second time’s charm as, after these 15 years in marketing, his love for coffee came back to him to try starting up the coffee business again.
“I was talking to some of the guys and eventually started cranking coffee,” Priest said. “We just didn’t have a local drive-thru in town. Back in 2006 and 2007, the only drive-thru coffee you could get was at McDonald’s or Burger King or places like that. There wasn’t even a Starbucks in Winston, so we just kept looking at different spots to build our business.”
While searching for a place to begin the coffee shop, there was one unique thing they found that they knew was meant to be.
“A friend of ours found a 1958 Airstream trailer, and another friend of ours had a gift shop where we are on Reynolda,” Priest said. “She wanted to get more foot traffic, so she figured the coffee shop would help, and then we just started working on it.”
Instead of building a physical drive-thru, this airstream captivated Priest.
“The nostalgia of Americana, it just kinda hits people in a certain way,” Priest said. “This trailer specifically was sold at what was called Old Town RVin Pfafftown. There’s still a tag on the trailer that shows when it was sold, adding to its originality. We then just kind of figured out that it was kind of like kismet, that it was meant to be and come home with us to Winston.”
This accomplishment of being nominated for the Top Ten Coffee in USA Today seemed to be an unexpected mystery at first.
“I thought it was a scam because it didn’t really make that much sense,” Priest said.“I have to verify a couple of links on the email that I received and I’m still kind of in the dark about how we were nominated”.
This nomination is a testament to the community of Winston-Salem, showing their love for the airstream’s coffee.
“The emotions were just kind of shocked and stunned, gobsmacked comes to mind,” Priest said. “It was truly kind of a David Goliath, Mom and Pop versus the big corpse, and our community just kind of beat them all.”
Local R.J. Reynolds High School students also tend to make up a strong community by supporting their love for the airstream, being right down the street from campus.
“I do the drive-thru and it’s quick to pick up before class as they’re always very friendly,” senior Elizabeth Googe said. “It’s a pretty quick interaction, and it’s very unique as no one else has my order this perfect.”
Many students find themselves needing this caffeinated pick-me-up to help during the school day.
“It’s just like a shot of energy gets me through the day, especially around the mid-day slump,” senior Alyssa Snider said.
For the airstream, the big win and gaining more publicity is making an impact.
“We have experienced an uptick in traffic that’s just kind of phenomenal,” Priest said. “What we’ve seen today has doubled more than the same time last year. It’s been monumental and potentially life-changing as we’re excited to see what happens down the road even though we are just a month into this.”
However this doesn’t all mean that there are going to be more Airstreams to come, as there can only be one.
“I love the fact that there’s only one and all of the folks that we were up against [had multiple locations],” Priest said. “We might do some other things down the road here or there, but I don’t think we can ever replicate this idea.”
The 1958 tiny coffee airstream in Winston-Salem is one never to underestimate as it’s now known as some of the best in the United States.