By the time clovers start sprouting this spring, Clover Coffee & Pilates plans to be ready to serve brews and pilates moves at its new location in Peotone.
The combo coffee-and-pilates shop is a new-ish endeavor for 22-year-old business owner Isabel Montes de Oca. For the past three years, she’s operated a traveling coffee shop, popping up at farmers’ markets and parking lots in both Beecher and Peotone.
The physical location represents the next step in realizing a dream that’s been a long time coming, hand-crafted with a lot of ambition, a lot of hard work and, likely, a lot of lattes.
Her story began with an old trolley.
“I wanted a coffee shop but knew I couldn’t start that way,” Montes de Oca said, noting it was always the goal to end up with a permanent, brick-and-mortar location.
“I stumbled across a 1996 beat-up trolley. It was a major labor of love and took two years to renovate,” she explained. Her family, several of whom are plumbers, helped bring the Clover Coffee trolley to life.
Once on the move, the green-and-black Clover Coffee trolley gave locals the chance to sip specialty coffees, lattes, teas, and refreshing fruit drinks at pop-up locations — all while she was attending college classes and saving up for something bigger.
As the coffee shop on wheels was winterized and closed each winter, Montes de Oca had time to reflect and realize it was time to level up. She’ll be graduating with a degree in marketing and communications from DePaul University this upcoming summer, and the timing was right to start making moves.
With the goal of a year-round physical location now within reach, and her love of pilates calling her to take a risk, Montes de Oca listed her trolley for sale.
Much to her surprise, she found a buyer right away. This happened right about the same time the perfect location at 427 S. Governors Highway became available.
“It was all falling into place, so I thought ok, maybe it’s meant to be,” she said.
Right now, Montes de Oca and her family are fixing up the new locale, which formerly housed a hair salon.
“The major work really is the plumbing for the coffee bar, but the rest of the work is cosmetic. We really want to make it cute and match the vibe,” she explained.
When people walk in, they’ll see the doors to the enclosed pilates studio, and beyond that will be the coffee shop’s seating area and walk-up coffee bar.
“We’ll offer heated pilates, but we don’t want to make the coffee shop 90 degrees,” Montes de Oca said of the separate pilates space.
Heated pilates workouts help increase muscle warmth and circulation, making it a little easier to work up a sweat and get in a harder workout. Although she enjoys pilates, she won’t be instructing — she’s bringing in certified instructors, allowing her to “stick to her coffee roots,” though you’ll likely catch her taking classes.
She’s still ironing out the hours and some of the logistics, but the plan is to have the coffee shop open Monday through Saturday, so anyone can come in for coffee and baked goods during business hours.
Pilates classes will be scheduled, and she’s hoping to have morning, afternoon, and evening classes available and searchable on the Mindbody app, which allows users to find fitness classes nearby.
“I know pilates can be intimidating, but I want it to be welcoming. We’ll offer beginner levels and advanced,” Montes de Oca noted.
It’s important to her that the pilates classes are affordable, too.
“I’m so excited because there’s nothing like it around, and the area, Peotone and Beecher, needs more like this,” she continued, adding she grew up in rural Peotone on the border of Beecher.
Montes de Oca’s eagerness to get started with her new venture is palpable, and the enthusiasm for the offerings is nothing short of contagious.
“I’m really just excited to bring something to the community where people can come in, connect, just relax. I saw how people showed up for the trolley, and I think people will really love and show up for this, too,” Montes de Oca said.
Clover Coffee & Pilates intends to open by March, but fans of coffee and/or pilates should stay tuned to her Facebook page for more details as they make progress toward opening.