BRAD HORN/Nevada Appeal Janice Wimer, owner of Maui Wowi Hawaiian, just opened a new coffee house in the Carson City Courthouse. Maui Wowi Hawaiian features specialties like a cappuccino smoothie.
The manager of the new courthouse coffee shop wears a floral print shirt and passes out Hawaiian-style shakes in front of a blue painted wall.
It wasn't always like that, said Dave Rose, who leases the room on the first floor of the Carson City Courthouse.
"It looked like the inside of a refrigerator," he said.
But the room had what Janice Wimer needed to expand her Maui Wowi franchise. Equipment such as an espresso machine, guaranteed customers and a good location by the only public restrooms on the floor impressed her.
"You get a lot of walk-through traffic," Rose said.
He ran a coffee house, Capri Cafe, in the space for four months after a former business there closed after five years. He got too busy with his other businesses, though, including a vending route and a coffee shop at the Legislative building.
Rose was able to get the space through a program with the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation that helps the visually impaired.
Opening new stores at the courthouse and, earlier in the year, at the Eagle Medical Center have been a "fluke," Wimer said, but she's happy she's been able to grow since opening her first store at College Parkway in July.
Before Wimer opened that, she and her husband, Bob, brought a cart around to different city events to promote their new business.
"So far so good," she said Wednesday. "It's day two (at the courthouse)."
Coffees and lattes are most popular now, she said, but she'll bring in sandwiches and soups soon and thinks the shakes will become popular even in the winter.
"Once they taste them they will be hooked on them and they'll be back," she said.
About 100 people work or volunteer at the courthouse, said Maxine Cortes, court administrator, and it's nice to have somewhere for food or coffee so employees don't have to leave, especially in the winter.
Wimer said she's going to bring in an employee to work at the courthouse store and is looking at expanding more, though she isn't sure where.
She is thinking about Douglas County, "but I feel like (businesses) who move to Douglas are traitors," she said.
• Contact reporter Dave Frank at dfrank@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.