By Gery Deer

JAMESTOWN, Ohio — One year ago, Ashley Mannier opened the doors of Jamestown Café during one of the busiest weekends of the year, the annual Jamestown Fall Festival. This weekend, she will celebrate the café’s first anniversary during the same event, this time as the festival parade’s grand marshal.

For Mannier, the recognition comes after a year of steady growth for the downtown café, located at 9 W. Washington St., and an expanding role for the business in the Jamestown community.

Jamestown Café opened in September 2025 following an extensive renovation of a long-vacant downtown building. Mannier and members of her family did much of the work themselves, transforming the aging storefront into a coffee shop, restaurant and gathering place.

Opening during the Jamestown Fall Festival immediately tested them. Crowds filled the café during its first weekend, at times forming a line around the building. The question afterward was whether that level of interest would continue once the festival tents came down and downtown returned to its normal routine.

The original concept centered on specialty coffee, tea, baked goods and simple café fare. Since then, the menu has grown to include breakfast sandwiches, signature sandwiches, paninis, house-made soups, pastries, cakes, ice cream and other items. A year later, the café has developed a steady customer base while continuing to expand its menu and services.

Some of the biggest changes during the first year have happened beyond the counter. Jamestown Café launched a new website, giving customers a central place to view menus, check hours, learn about specials and place orders online. The café has also added delivery service, extending its reach beyond customers who can visit the downtown location.

The website includes an online shop featuring branded merchandise and other café products, giving the business another way to connect with customers. Those additions represent significant changes from the business that opened its doors only a year ago, but Mannier’s original goal for the café has remained largely the same: creating a place where people can gather.

That community role has extended beyond serving food and coffee. Over the past year, the café has hosted and participated in community activities, supported local causes and continued building relationships with other Jamestown businesses and organizations.

Much of the café’s character also reflects the surrounding community. Historic photographs and memorabilia donated by area residents line the walls, while Mannier and her family built or restored many of the furnishings and fixtures during the renovation.

Mannier has said from the beginning that she wanted the café to become what is sometimes called a “third place,” somewhere other than home or work where people feel comfortable spending time and connecting with others. Over the past year, regular customers have increasingly filled that role themselves, stopping in for morning coffee, meeting friends for lunch or simply occupying a familiar table.

One of the newest members of the Jamestown Café team is 21-year-old Cedarville University student Felicity Kirvy. She started as a barista at the café in mid-August of this year and jokes that she took the job partly because she loves coffee. “A friend of mine was working here and I’d tried other places, but they all wanted someone experienced. I came in and met Ashley, and I was really impressed, and she said they’d train me.”

Kirvy said it’s been interesting to be here during the café’s one-year anniversary. “It’s been really interesting seeing how it’s expanding and starting to branch out.” We asked what she’d tell people about the café. “You should come for the community and the warm atmosphere. It beats the chain restaurants; there’s personality behind it, and people here know your name; it has character.”

Another recent addition to the café’s character and expansion is their new coffee cart. They’ve already had it out and it’s a prominent feature during the Jamestown Fall Festival, placed right outside the café. Special from the cart are their “bucket” drinks – fruit drinks, lemonades and coffee – in a bucket.

The café will mark its first anniversary Saturday, Sept. 19, as part of the Fall Festival weekend. The café will cut a one-year anniversary cake at 12:30 p.m., and it will hold hourly raffle drawings throughout the day as part of the celebration. They’re also offering 10-percent discounts on cafe-branded merchandise.

The anniversary brings the story back to where it began. Jamestown Café opened amid the crowds and activity of the Jamestown Fall Festival 2025. A year later, Mannier will be part of the festival again, but this time she will have a different view of the celebration as grand marshal of the parade organized by the Jamestown Lions Club as part of the annual festival. The cafe will have extended hours Friday and Saturday during the festival, remaining open until 8 PM both days.

For a business that began with a renovated building, a new staff and plenty of uncertainty about what would happen after opening weekend, the anniversary offers Mannier and her crew an opportunity to celebrate something that could not have been known a year ago. The crowds came back. And somewhere along the way, Jamestown Café became part of Jamestown.

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