Candice and Zach Pritz cut the ribbon at the grand opening of their new business in Flat Rock. *All Photos courtesy of Colton Kilgore.*

ShareWell Coffee Co. and Roastery hosted their grand opening in Flat Rock Square yesterday to officially open Flat Rock’s latest addition to the Village’s charming and bustling commercial center. Judging by the crowds that swarmed the new business on opening day, ShareWell Coffee seems to be the perfect brew of quality products and happy customers.

ShareWell Coffee is owned by Candice and Zach Pritz. Started in 2016, ShareWell has enjoyed a nomadic existence to date that involved a handful of locations for the growing business. With the opening of their first dedicated coffee shop, however, the Pritzes believe their small but energetic company has found its true home in the Village of Flat Rock.

ShareWell Coffee started as a coffee roasting business using high-quality and carefully sourced beans from around the world. “We are coffee roasters first and foremost,” explains Candice. “But since we’ve been in business, it’s morphed into several things. We committed early on to be flexible and open-minded - to see what the community was interested in.”

With the opening of their Flat Rock shop, the Pritzes will be able to augment their wholesale coffee bean business. The new shop will offer an espresso bar, slow pour coffees, and locally produced baked goods from Pullman Bread Company, in addition to their bagged coffees. All in a space which Candice and Zach hope will foster community and connection.

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The idea for a coffee roasting business originated in Ann Arbor, Michigan where the couple lived for three years prior to moving to North Carolina. Zach continued his college studies while also exploring ways to pursue his passion for coffee. Candice was National Sales Manager for a sports apparel company with marketing and communications experience. Merging their complementary skill sets, they began to brainstorm ways that their shared interest in coffee might be incorporated into their new life together.

In 2016, they packed up their belongings and prepared to head back to Candice’s hometown of Hendersonville. On their way out of town, they stopped to pick up a new coffee roaster. That roaster and the dreams of a young newlywed couple were the genesis of ShareWell Coffee.

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Candice and Zach met via an unexpected combination of Olympic wrestling and Twitter. In 2013, Candice was working in Colorado Springs with USA Olympic Wrestling after attending North Carolina State University where she earned a degree in Sports Management. Zach, a few years younger, had grown up in Florida and was still a college student in Chicago with a passion for wrestling - and coffee.

Zach’s interest in wrestling led him to follow Candice on Twitter where she would post about the Olympic wrestling team. Eventually, they began communicating online and a long-distance spark arced across the Midwest from Chicago to Colorado Springs.

After six months of long-distance communications, Candice offered Zach tickets to a national wrestling tournament in Stillwater, OK where they met in-person for the first time. It was June of 2013 and that initial spark ignited a flame. They met a second time that summer when Zach traveled to Colorado Springs to visit Candice. The third time they met in person, in August, Zach proposed. They were married in June of 2014 and two of Candice’s bridesmaids were, fittingly enough, Olympic wrestlers.

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Once in NC, Zach and Candice moved into new jobs with Veritas Christian Academy in Fletcher, NC. Candice handles communications and marketing for the school and Zach teaches Biblical studies and logic. Zach immediately began roasting coffee in the evenings and the couple started to sell bags of coffee beans to local grocery stores and retail shops.

They named the start-up Sharewell Coffee Company. The name ShareWell originated from conversations with a woman named Lit in Ann Arbor who was dealing with homelessness. They met Lit through an outreach program organized by their church and they asked her what a community could do to address an issue as daunting and complicated as homelessness. Lit’s answer was simple and inspirational - share your time. Share your energy and resources. Share community with the person you are trying to help.

That conversation was pivotal for Candice and Zach and they knew immediately that the word “share” would be integrated into the name for the new enterprise they dreamed of starting. The “Well” part of ShareWell derives from the biblical parable of the Samaritan woman and Jesus meeting at a community well. The parable conveys the importance of truth, acceptance, and love. Ultimately, the name ShareWell is a testimony to the couple’s shared vision, their commitment to community, and their foundational faith.

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Candice greets a customer during Sharewell Coffee’s Grand Opening.

The early days of ShareWell Coffee involved housing their roaster at a small restaurant in Hendersonville that allowed Zach to roast coffee beans after hours. “Zach would have to go in after restaurant hours so it was sometimes 11 to 2 a.m. that he was roasting,” Candice recalls.

From there, ShareWell partnered with Wine Sage and Gourmet in downtown Hendersonville for a couple of years before ending up at Saint Paul Mountain Farms Appalachian Ridge Hard Cider. There they continued to roast coffee for wholesale and offered an espresso bar on Saturday mornings. They also began offering classes about coffee.

Throughout the journey, Zach and Candice were learning about the business and building relationships in the community while waiting for the right moment to take the next big step. That time arrived when Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards moved out of Flat Rock Square and the space became an option for ShareWell. “All the stars just aligned for us to end up in Flat Rock,” Candice explains. “When we looked at the space we both said, ‘This is it. This is our next move.’”

After five years of being focused on roasting coffee and being a wholesaler of coffee, Zach is excited to have a space where he and Candice can be face to face with their customers. “A majority of our customers have been purchasing our coffee from our wholesale partners in Hendersonville,” he explains. “But they’ve never met us or our team personally. Now we have an opportunity to connect with our customers on a more personal level.”

The new shop will be open Wednesday to Saturday from 8-12 noon and Candice hopes that the shop will serve as a community center of sorts for small group meetings or possible after-hour rentals.

What distinguishes ShareWell Coffee? As Zach sees it there are two primary reasons for their success. First, their commitment to source extremely high-quality coffee beans from around the world. Second, a focus on an exceptional customer experience. “We also offer more than just coffee. We offer classes that bring people deeper into the world of specialty coffee.” Past classes have covered topics such as the roasting process, Crop to Cup - The Journey of the Coffee Bean, and a more whimsical class on Latte art.

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Marriage can be a challenge. Being married to your business partner can make that dynamic even more daunting. But Candice and Zach seem genuinely comfortable with the life they are building together - along with their three-year-old daughter, Nelle. “I was the coffee crazy person when we met, so I kind of dragged her into the business,” Zach says with a smile. “But her gifts are marketing and PR and that allows me to focus on the coffee and the quality of the product. We really complement each other in that way.” 

Candice admits the challenge but enjoys the business being a family affair. “My friends will ask how we do it. And, yeah, date night usually turns into a business meeting. But that’s because we are passionate about what we are doing. And we get to share that together.” Given that Candice did not own a coffee maker when she met her future husband, that is a fairly remarkable statement.

Even the youngest Pritz, Nelle, is excited about the new venture. “Nelly is so proud of the shop,” says Candice. “She told somebody in the grocery store that she has a new coffee shop. So it’s a lot of fun for the family.”

It has been a long and winding road shared by Candice and Zach as they’ve built a business from a shared belief and notes scribbled on a notepad. Fortunately for the rest of us, that road led a young couple with a dream to Flat Rock and the next chapter of the ShareWell Coffee adventure.

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