Enumclaw Couple On a Mission to Help Military - With Donations and Coffee

Denise Pulliam said she’s “taught the majority of kids in town to swim.”

Well, that should mean she has a good customer base for her
newly opened Mission Creek Coffee House along Highway 410 in Enumclaw.

For years Pulliam ran the school district swim program. But once her children left town Pulliam said she needed a job change.

She and her husband, Walter, got the idea of the coffee house while visiting a daughter in Missouri, where her husband is in the Army.
The daughter complained that there were no drive-through coffee stands on base.

“She loves her coffee, being from the Pacific Northwest,” Pulliam said. “That was the seed that got everything going.”

The Pulliams decided they wanted to open coffee stands near bases. Problem is, they have lived in Enumclaw for 25 years. There are no bases here, and they didn’t want to move.

Her husband looked at locations from Olympia to Arlington.

“I was not for it at all. We love our community,” she said, adding she did not come onboard until they found their current site.

Her husband likes the location, too, because he works right across the street for the Department of Natural Resources.

“I tease him that we only did this so he could have lunch with me,” she said.

Even though the Pulliams first coffee stand is not near a military base, “Our pie in the sky goal is to open others around bases,” she said, adding they still have the military in their hearts as they donate
proceeds from every sale to the Fisher House. That organization supports military families while their loved ones are hospitalized. That is why the slogan for the Pulliams' store is “coffee with a purpose.”

Pulliam said she’s still learning about the business.

“I don’t understand the ebb and flow” of customers, she said. “But I’m not going to panic. We’re having a blast.”

They learned a lot from Buono Coffee Roaster Gary Sainati out
of Wilkeson. He helped them develop their own private brand of Italian coffee, which sells for $10.50 for a 12-ounce bag. The blend is a mixture of four types of beans. The taste is full bodied and smooth with no burnt or acidic taste.

Even though there many other coffee stands in town, Pulliam isn’t worried about being successful.

“There are enough coffee drinkers for all of us to do our own thing,” she said.

Mission Creek Coffee is located at 1314 Roosevelt Ave. E. Its website is www.missioncreekcoffee.vpweb.com. It’s phone number is 360-825-2474. And its email is missioncreekcoffee@gmail.com.