Brewedly Awakened Coffee: Good Coffee, Good Neighbors and a Name Born on the Road

Laurens County Coffee Series, Part Two

Some businesses get their names in a conference room. Brewedly Awakened Coffee got its name somewhere on the highway to Asheville.

It was 2024, and Lonnie Wilson and Jill Johnson were driving north to tour coffee shops and walk the arboretum. The trip was part research, part daydream. They knew they wanted “brewed” in the name. They knew they wanted something about waking up. Miles of back-and-forth later, they had it.

“Yes, we like to make up words too,” Wilson said.

The invented word turned out to be the easy part. What followed was a business plan, a coffee blend of their own making, and eventually a decision to bring the whole operation home to Lake Greenwood.

Two restaurant people, two different ideas

Wilson and Johnson each came to coffee from the restaurant world, but from different directions. Johnson has spent a lifetime in restaurants and event planning, and has managed and operated Lighthouse Pizza, Subs and More on Lake Greenwood since 2019. Wilson is retired from the Army and farms. His investments over the years have run through restaurants and entertainment, including music festivals.

Johnson wanted to move into the mobile market. Wilson wanted to build a coffee brand of his own. On that 2024 trip, the two ideas became one plan: start mobile, then move into a brick-and-mortar space.

The brick-and-mortar answer was already in the family. With Johnson running Lighthouse on the lake, the partners eventually decided that was the right place to fold the coffee business in. Cross Hill has been home since 2018.

“We love the lake atmosphere and our lake family,” the owners said.

Backcountry Blend

The coffee at Brewedly Awakened is not a wholesale bag with someone else’s name on it. Wilson and Johnson developed their own blend, a dark roast they describe as consistent and comfortable, with a smooth, bold finish.

They call it Backcountry Blend, and they are careful about how they talk about it.

“Our Backcountry Blend is part of our identity, not just a coffee we use,” Wilson said. The goal, he added, was a serious cup that people actually want to drink, rather than something engineered to impress. Bags are available in the shop to take home, in both caffeinated and decaf.

Ask about quality and the answer gets plainspoken fast.

“Quality isn’t about being fancy,” Wilson said. “It’s about being consistent, honest, and giving people a product we are proud to put our name on. We want people to leave with a feeling that it was worth it.” He put a finer point on it: if he wouldn’t serve it to his own family, he shouldn’t be serving it to customers.

The Herd Favorites

The menu has its stars, and around the shop they are known as the Herd Favorites: the Cookie Butter Latte, the OG Brown Cow and the Barnwood Shakers, alongside a lineup of Alani mixers and dirty sodas.

Wilson built the menu and the recipes. Lead barista Jessica Santiago is the one who has dialed the drinks in.

The food side of the operation carries its own local partnerships. There is locally made ice cream from Scoops and Cups out of Greenwood. On Sundays, baked pastas come out starting at 4 p.m. And on Mondays, the coffee counter goes quiet while the Santiagos of Santiago’s Kitchen take over the kitchen with a Mexican menu.

“They aren’t just another customer”

The crowd on any given day is a mix of boat traffic off Lake Greenwood, folks who live nearby, and weekend visitors. The atmosphere the owners set out to build was deliberate from day one: fun, friendly, laid-back, and pointed squarely at the community.

What they hear back has less to do with the coffee than they expected.

“A place where they aren’t just another customer,” Wilson said, describing what the space means to regulars. “We know their names, what they order, and our staff knows them as friends and neighbors.”

That has been the biggest surprise of the whole venture.

“The relationship matters as much as the product does,” he said. “I didn’t realize we would be building a place that would become part of people’s daily life.”

The owners would like to widen the circle. They are hoping to see more young adults, more families with children, and more residents from across Cross Hill, Waterloo and the Lake Greenwood area who simply haven’t found them yet.

Showing up for Cross Hill

Community support runs both directions here. Brewedly Awakened helped set up and continues to support Hotter on the Hill, a chili cook-off that raises money for the Cross Hill fire department. The owners are heavily involved in Christmas in the Park. They have backed Take a Warrior Fishing during the Southern Showdown on Lake Greenwood.

That, in their view, is the whole argument for independent coffee shops.

“We want to be part of our community’s identity,” Wilson said. He described a gathering place where people host celebrations and meetings, and where neighbors turn into friends. “We want to be flexible to respond to community needs while still being unapologetically us, and not trying to outdo the chain stores.”

The hard part

Ask about the biggest challenge and the answer isn’t the coffee. It isn’t the staff, either.

It was the move.

Folding a coffee brand into an existing restaurant meant a tremendous amount of change in a short window: new order systems, inventory management, new suppliers to integrate, and financial pressure that customers never see from the other side of the counter.

“The support of our great employees gets us through, and understanding that plans need to be flexible to be successful,” Wilson said. “We have and are adapting daily.”

Growth, for now, means staying alert rather than building out. The owners describe themselves as always hunting for the next niche: the next thing a current customer needs, or the thing that brings a new one through the door.

What they want you to know

Mostly, the owners said, they want people to know where they are and when they’re open, because the two sides of the business keep different hours.

The coffee side runs 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. The food side runs 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., except Mondays, when it opens at 11 a.m.

“We strive to be intentionally local-minded, personal and a little adventurous, while being approachable,” the owners said in closing. “Jill and our amazing employees have made our business what it is. That personal connection is something you can’t manufacture. We live here, work here, and are invested in what happens here.”

They’re not done figuring out what it becomes.

“We are still ultimately looking to see what we will grow into,” they said. “But that’s part of being an independent local business.”

THREE WORDS

We asked the owners to describe their shop in three words.

Community. Quality. Connection.

IF YOU GO

Brewedly Awakened Coffee

Inside Lighthouse Pizza, Subs and More

549 Landing Road, Cross Hill, SC 29332

Coffee hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Food hours: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily; Monday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Sundays: Baked pastas from 4 p.m.

Mondays: Mexican menu by Santiago’s Kitchen

Coffee: 864-871-0296

Restaurant: 864-998-3500

Facebook: Brewedly Awakened, Lighthouse Pizza Subs and More

The Laurens County Coffee Series celebrates the independent coffee shops that make our county unique: the people behind the counter, the stories behind the cups, and the spaces where neighbors gather. Know a shop we should feature? Email [email protected].