As Carter’s Coffee Bar opens Broadway location, co-owner already planning expansion into Palmyra

QUINCY — Carter’s Coffee Bar celebrated its grand opening of its second site at Seventh and Broadway on Monday, but co-owner Ciara Weese already is thinking about the future.

Rather than build a third business from the ground up, Weese says a Carter’s franchise will be going in the former HNB Bank building at 203 S. Main in Palmyra, Mo. It will have a drive-thru, just like the two locations in Quincy, but it also will have a sit-down coffee shop that neither Quincy location offers.

“That’s going to be our next project,” Weese said Monday. “It’s nice because we don’t have to start from scratch, and we just remodeled the whole place. We’re hoping for it to be open at the beginning of the year.

“It’s been quite the past couple of weeks.”

It’s been quite the past couple of years for Weese, who runs the coffee bars with her mother, Debbie Carter. The first location at 3815 Maine, which opened May 1, 2020, has been wildly popular. Lines of cars waiting for teas, coffees and Lotus energy drinks often spill out on to Maine.

The new location, festooned with balloons Monday in celebration of the grand opening, can accommodate 13 cars in the drive-thru lanes, plus it has a walk-up window and spots for off-street parking.

“You can get the exact same drinks at both locations,” Weese said. “What’s different is we do have a double drive-thru that merges into one line, and then we have a speaker where you can make your order (rather than at the window at the 3815 Maine location). We’ve also had a lot of customers walking over from Blessing Hospital who go to the walk-up window and order.”

Better yet, Weese reported no problems with people waiting on Broadway to turn into the parking lot to get their drinks.

Weese said the Broadway location has 30 employees, and the Maine location has 50 employees.