Wayfarer to open Lakeport location

LACONIA — Five years after giving downtown Laconia a coffee shop, the owners of Wayfarer Coffee Roasters are extending their presence in the city by opening a second location. Wayfarer’s new storefront will be in the Lakeport Opera House, at the Union Avenue end of Elm Street.

Wayfarer Coffee – the “Roasters” will be dropped from the Lakeport name because the beans will still be roasted downtown – will open in “early summer,” said Karen Bassett, one of the founders and owners of Wayfarer. The Lakeport location, about 1.5 miles from the downtown shop, will serve the same coffee, and offer the same kind of atmosphere, Bassett said, but will serve different food items to a clientele that she expects will be distinct from their regulars downtown.

“With all of our restaurants, we have tried to fill a need that the town has,” said Bassett, whose husband, Reuben, owns Burrito Me and Laconia Local Eatery. “For here, it will still be Wayfarer Coffee, everything you expect from the Wayfarer experience you will get here. But we are going to have some fun with the menu.”

In addition to new food options, Bassett said the Lakeport location will offer something else their patrons won’t get downtown: second floor seating.

“We’re going to have an amazing industrial staircase that will go to the second-floor lounge,” Bassett said. Like the downtown location, the Lakeport space will be filled with a mix of seating types.

Whereas the downtown coffee shop serves a clientele that is mostly people who work in the city, Bassett expects the Lakeport location to be frequented by people who live in the immediate vicinity, and by tourists and seasonal visitors who are passing through.

She said she was excited to be part of a movement that seems to be rejuvenating the Lakeport section of the city  in the same way that the opening of Wayfarer Coffee Roasters was seen as part of a renewal for the downtown area, one which will take a major step forward when the restored Colonial Theater opens. The Laconia Daily Sun –  featuring some enthusiastic coffee fans on staff – will also be moving to the Opera House in April, and Scott Everett, owner of the Opera House building, also has plans to restore the historic theater on the second floor of the Lakeport structure.

Bassett said she was particularly happy with the renovation of the Opera House, which will flood the Wayfarer Coffee space with natural light coming through large windows on both the Union Avenue and Clinton Street sides of the building.

“We want to be part of the growth,” she said, adding that her experience as an entrepreneur has led to her “being OK with taking risks to benefit the community.” She understood that some might see it as unwise to open their second location so near to their original.

“Someone’s got to be the dreamer. Working with Scott Everett, it’s great to be working with someone who sees the positive for Laconia,” Bassett said. “We’re going to go for it, we’re going to continue to make Laconia the town that we always wanted it to be.”