SOUTH HADLEY – Thirsty Mind Coffee & Wine Bar at 23 College St., Suite 6, in South Hadley offers locally roasted coffee, specialty drinks like lattes and cappuccinos and is one of the few places in town that does a quick to go breakfast with bagels, croissant sandwiches and pastries. Like many businesses over the past year, though, Thirsty Mind has been “treading water.”

“It's just a small-town coffee shop with a welcoming and comfortable environment,” said Owner Kenn Kosiba. “I’ve often described Thirsty Mind as a working-class coffee shop both in terms of our customers and our staff. We're not super fancy, but we have really good products. It's a good community spot where a lot people could get together for meetings, do their work or have a change of pace.”

A Mount Holyoke College student favorite, Thirsty Mind has an unofficial popular drink called the London Fog – an Earl gray tea latte with vanilla syrup.

Thirsty Mind Coffee was established in 1996. Kosiba started working there in 2006 under previous owner Todd Thomas. When Thomas decided to move on in 2008, Kosiba was climbing up and helped him run some aspects of the business. Thomas gave Kosiba the opportunity to step in and take over.

“Just barely managed to scrap enough together, get the rest loaned and I decided to give it a shot. It's not something that I think I would have thought that I would end up doing. Now that I’ve been doing it for well over a decade, I love it and I wouldn't do anything else,” Kosiba said. “The thing I learned by being an employee first is how impactful the owner's presence can be on the success or failure of a small business. The more time spent being present and hands on seemed to directly increase productivity as well as morale. I think if you want something done right you train capable people to do it the right way.”

Kosiba said  Thirsty Mind is primarily a cafe that has hundreds of used books at their shop that cost $1.

Prior to the pandemic, they would do live music on the weekends. Thirsty Mind had an open mic night every Thursday for people to come and perform or listen to music, which Kosiba said was another great outreach to the community, especially in the Valley because there’s such a good music scene.

Due to the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, their live entertainment is postponed until further notice.

“It’s been really rough honestly,” replied Kosiba. “The past few years before 2020 we saw a huge increase. We were busier and busier every year. Unfortunately, it peaked in 2019, but only because the pandemic rolled around February and March of last year. We shut down completely in March and then didn't reopen until August, so we missed a big chunk of the year there.”

Now, Thirsty Mind is take-out only and there’s no indoor seating; instead, they utilize their Toast Take-Out to do take-out orders. Customers can go to toasttakeout.com and place their orders on their phone so when they come in everything is ready to go. Thirsty Mind has hand sanitizer for people as soon as they come through the door, and they require all of their customers and staff to wear masks at all times while also providing masks and gloves upon request if someone needs them.

Kosiba said, “We’re still treading water and holding our breath on a lot of the restrictions to be lifted and for things to get back to normal on the other side of the pandemic, but I can’t wait to welcome people back into the shop where we're tentatively rolling out live music again in autumn if things are back to normal enough where we can do it safety. I think that’s really the big thing is getting some entertainment back in there and giving people a place to come and hang out again.”

Thirsty Mind Coffee and Wine Bar are open every day from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Visit thirstymindcoffeeshop.com or call at 538-9309 for additional information.