There’s a quartet of women in Rehoboth who decided to wake up and smell the coffee.

Two couples, Cathin Bishop and Laura Simon, along with Pam Kozey and Marie Martinucci recently joined the ranks of Rehoboth entrepreneurs and purchased The Coffee Mill in Rehoboth Mews between Baltimore and Rehoboth Avenues.

The new owners, long immersed in careers having nothing to do with retail or coffee, heard that their favorite coffee shop was for sale and jumped headlong into the world of cappuccino, café au lait and environmentally conscious coffee sales.

"When we heard that the place was for sale, we worried, because we knew it was a great gathering place for locals as well as visitors and we didn’t want it to change," Cathin says.

"Laura and I frequently had those ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could’ conversations, and ownership of The Coffee Mill kept coming up."

While owning the place by themselves seemed like too great a leap for the retired teachers, going in with their pals Pam and Marie—who also loved the place—gave them the comfort level to take the plunge.

Now the four are up to their ears in bagels, muffins and java.

"Cathin and Laura introduced us to The Coffee Mill when we started visiting here," says Pam Kozey, "and their enthusiasm for it was infectious. When I stopped being a weekender and moved here full time, this seemed like a great opportunity."

Although Pam is busy moving her Myofascial Trigger Point Therapy practice to Rehoboth, she’s also going to be spending time at "The Mill." You’ll find her taking shifts behind the register or making lattes—getting to know everything about the business.

Marie, retired from the military after 24 years, also saw a practical side. While she’s still working in Virginia for a defense contractor (helping our troops with health issues after they return from deployment), she’s planning for her Rehoboth retirement. Now, when she comes to town on weekends, she’s already part of the Rehoboth business community and looks forward to having something fun to do in her retirement.

"Rehoboth’s such a friendly town, and this is a great way for all of us to be more involved in the community," says Marie.

"It was the politics of The Coffee Mill philosophy that I really liked," says Laura Simon. The Coffee Mill only deals in Fair Trade Coffee, and beans that are shade grown, from slow growth forests. That translates to growers being paid a living wage, and business practices that preserve the rain forests—home to migratory birds. "We call it coffee with a conscience," Laura says, "and we intend to keep doing business this way."

All the new owners enjoy joking about their "corporate structure." Marie is the Chief Financial Officer, thanks to her years in logistics in the military; Laura is Chief Operating Officer, which must have come from her leadership days as a Phys. Ed. Teacher. "Pam and I are lackeys," Cathin says with a smile, but it’s plain that she has big plans for redecorating the place—an activity that meshes well with her current job at an art gallery.

With these four musketeers rolling up their sleeves and diving into every detail of running the coffee shop, there’s one thing that they all agree upon: they would not have purchased the place if manager Kitty Harmon, a Coffee Mill legend for the past five years, was not willing to stay on after the sale.

"We are so lucky to have her there," says Pam. "If she hadn’t wanted to stay, that would have been a deal breaker. She knows the business inside out, she knows everyone in town, has a great way with names and faces, and everyone enjoys her. We are really lucky."

"And she puts up with the four of us!" Cathin says, explaining that the four new owners all had to be trained on the cash register and taught all the intricacies of the coffee business.

"One man came in and asked for a Macchiato and I said ‘we don’t sell Italian cars here,’"says Cathin. "We had a lot to learn."

Now that the summer season is over, plans and new ideas abound for the winter. The Coffee Mill will be offering soups along with sandwiches and the owners hope their place will be a new alternative for lunch downtown.

In addition, there will be coffee tastings, and (authors note: they made me say this) and even a book reading as Rehoboth author Fay Jacobs will be reading from her book As I Lay Frying at The Coffee Mill at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday evening October 20.

Another idea that the gals have is hosting a book club at The Coffee Mill. "If there is anyone reading this that is affiliated with a book club and they want to meet at the Coffee Mill, we’d love to hear from them," says Pam. "It would be a great place for wintertime book club meetings."

Between expanding their catering business (breakfasts for business meetings, B&B’s and private parties) and learning all they ever wanted to know about coffee beans but were afraid to ask, The Coffee Mill’s new owners have their work cut out for them.

Keeping up will take a lot of environmentally sensitive caffeine, but that’s one thing they’ve got plenty of.

Head to The Coffee Mill and introduce yourselves. And, take it from this reporter: the chocolate brownies are divine.