Airship Coffee opened a location in Coler Mountain Bike Preserve in 2020.

Exposed to the elements. No parking lot. No wifi. Just a café, about a mile into the park, accessible only by bike or on foot.

Was it crazy or brilliant?

The Coler location marked Airship’s first expansion beyond its original café on 5th Street.

Sitting at the 5th Street location, owner Mark Bray said, “This one wasn't very risky. We've been roasting here since 2012. We literally cut a hole in the wall and said, ‘Hey, let's serve our coffee here.’ So it wasn't a major investment. It wasn't a heavy lift. In a lot of ways, Coler was kind of our first big venture.”

Trails and biking were becoming more of a focus for Bentonville, but Bray said there were still some “sleepless nights” as the coffee shop at Coler came to fruition.

But soon after opening, it became clear there wasn’t a reason to worry.

“We realized pretty fast that we had a tiger by the tail,” Bray said. “It was a profitable business right out of the gate, really.”

Compared to other Airship locations, the Coler location sees more pronounced peaks and valleys in sales due to weather, but overall, it’s been a success. Holidays, weekends, and warm weather days can bring lines of dozens of people waiting to order at the unconventional coffee shop.

The thinking at first was that the café would be an add-on to the park, serving people who were already there, like a pub at the end of a ski slope. People would come for mountain biking, then stay for a coffee or beer.

What surprised Bray was how many people came specifically for the coffee shop, making it a destination in its own right.

On a recent leisurely Sunday, two such customers, Travis Toebben and Isabelle Horton, were enjoying their first visit to the Coler location.

Toebben just moved to the area for a construction job and was exploring the city.

“This was the first stop someone told me to check out,” he said. “It’s just different.”

Horton, visiting from the Conway area, added “I want to bring my friends up here.”

With the rise of craft and specialty coffee, Bentonville now has at least 14 locally owned coffee shops and cafés. As the scene becomes more saturated, trying something risky might be the least risky option.

“If you look at the development cycle of specialty coffee, it's been growing in popularity for the last 20 years, but it had really kind of gotten to this point where everyone was just sort of doing the same thing,” Bray said. “And that's why the Coler thing really piqued my interest, because this is not the same. This is just different altogether. We're flipping it on its head.”

Airship Coffee now has five locations in Bentonville: Coler, Airship on the Porch (810 Customer Drive), Fifth Street (1000 SE 5th St.), Ledger (240 S Main St), and Pumphouse (802 NW A St).