Mary Ann Coulter can't quite explain what it was about the little Hendersonville coffee house that caught her attention. After all, she had only been inside once, on a visit with her daughter, but something about the place stayed with her. Then one day, as she drove past what was then the Stomping Ground, she had a thought that was as unexpected as it was certain.

“I just rode by one day, and I knew, ‘I want to buy that coffee house,” Mary Ann recalled.

It wasn't the culmination of a lifelong dream to own a coffee shop. In fact, Mary Ann had built a career in property management, not coffee, and she didn't have any experience as a barista or know the ins and outs of running a café.

She simply knew there was something special about the place.

During a visit to the coffee house, Mary Ann took the idea one step further by telling one of the employees, “You know, I’d love to buy this place.“

And eventually, she decided to see if she could.

Mary Ann tracked down the owner and reached out, only to learn that the owner was interested in passing the coffee house along and had hoped to find someone who appreciated what it already was and would preserve the welcoming atmosphere people had come to love.

For Mary Ann, that was an easy promise to make.

“I just loved what they had built from the beginning,” she said.

Soon, Mary Ann and her twin sister, Diane Carey-Stranko, were the owners of what would become The Cozy Nook. Mary Ann readily admits they didn't entirely know what they were getting themselves into.

Neither sister came from the coffee business. In fact, both had careers in property management.

“We didn’t know how to do anything,” Mary Ann said. “We just went in head first.”

As it turns out, that approach is something of a family trait.

“I guess that’s how we live our lives,” Mary Ann said. “We just go right in, and it’s chaotic, and then we smooth it out, figure it out, put the fires out, and then we start growing.”

And it was with this philosophy that they learned the business; getting to know their employees and customers and working long hours until the coffee house Mary Ann had felt inexplicably drawn to slowly began to feel like their own.

After about eight and a half months, Mary Ann felt confident enough in the business to return to her career in property management, while Diane left her own property management position to take over more of the day-to-day operations at The Cozy Nook.

Everything seemed to be falling into place.

One week later, there was a fire.

A spark in a bathroom fan had ignited a blaze that spread through the attic, and the resulting damage was widespread.

The bathroom was destroyed and had to be completely gutted. Smoke and fire damage meant that the walls, carpeting, furniture, and equipment throughout the coffee house would require cleaning and restoration.

Food and syrups had to be discarded.

For a small business still in its first year under the sisters' ownership, it was a devastating setback.

But while the sisters assessed the damage inside The Cozy Nook, something unexpected began happening outside its doors.

People began showing up.

They came with flowers and cards. They left signs telling the sisters how much the coffee house was missed. They called and sent messages. They asked if they could clean, rebuild, or help in any way.

“That was a beautiful thing about our community,” Mary Ann said. “We had so many people reach out and ask, ‘How can I help? How can I help rebuild?’”

While the sisters were grateful for every offer, they decided to handle the physical restoration privately, as they wanted their customers to remember The Cozy Nook as the warm, familiar place they loved--not as a building damaged by fire and torn apart for repairs.

Instead, in response to continued requests to help, Mary Ann made a simple request.

“I said, ‘Please just pray. Just pray for us,’” she recalled. “That’s it. That’s all we asked for.”

And the encouragement kept coming.

People stopped by the closed coffee house with flowers and cards. Others left large signs with messages telling the sisters they missed The Cozy Nook and couldn't wait for it to return.

“It was overwhelming,” Mary Ann said. “It was so kind, because people don’t have to do that. They just don’t have to do it.”

For Mary Ann, those gestures were especially meaningful because the sisters were still relatively new to the coffee business. Yet in a remarkably short amount of time, the place she had once driven past and simply felt she needed to be a part of had become important to other people, too.

“It’s just a part of the community,” Mary Ann said. “And people missed it.”

Perhaps one of the most meaningful demonstrations of that loyalty came from the people who worked there.

The Cozy Nook has a staff of thirteen. With the coffee house closed for nearly two months, Mary Ann knew it would be understandable if employees needed to find other jobs and move on, and she fully expected that some of them would.

Not one did.

“They all stayed,” Mary Ann said. “They all came back.”

And soon, after weeks of cleaning, rebuilding and restoring, the day finally arrived when the lights came back on, the coffee began brewing, and The Cozy Nook reopened its doors.

On the day it reopened, if Mary Ann and Diane had any doubt about how much the community had missed the little coffee house, it disappeared that morning.

“The first day back, it was insane,” Mary Ann said. “There were lines around the building.”

At one point, the crowd was so large that the sisters considered closing the doors around noon just long enough for the staff to catch up.

Instead, they did what they had been doing from the beginning.

“We just kept going,” she said.

And the customers kept coming.

After nearly two months of an empty coffee house, The Cozy Nook was full again.

“Business is booming,” Mary Ann said. “We’re pretty much getting back to normal.”

But for the sisters, what happened during those weeks away from normal may be something they remember even longer.

When they needed it most, they saw a community offer its hands when there was work to be done and its prayers when they were asked for.

They saw loyal employees choose to hope, wait, and return.

They saw a community that brought flowers, cards, and well-wishes to a closed coffee house simply because they wanted its owners to know they cared.

And when the doors finally opened again, they saw a line around the building.

Mary Ann may not be able to explain exactly why she felt so drawn to that little coffee house the first time she saw it, but she knew there was something about it that was worth taking a chance on.

And in the difficult weeks following the fire, the community showed the sisters that they felt the same way.