Pine Ridge Cafe

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Pine Ridge Cafe

12 Feb

Big Valley, Kish Valley, the last valley before Happy Valley. It’s almost the Pennsylvania Wilds, but not quite. Kishacoquillas Valley has many monikers, but the feeling you get when you hear the words is the same. At least that’s true if you live in central Pennsylvania. It’s a main center of Amish culture, in some ways just as much as Lancaster, if not moreso.

I say ‘if not moreso’ because Kishacoquillas Valley is home to no less than three of the more conservative Amish groups in the state. These are the Byler Amish, Renno Amish, and Nebraska Amish. The latter is the most conservative of the three, embodying many of the commonly imagined archetypes of Amish life. Many don’t even paint their barns, and electricity use is kept to a minimum. Not even lawnmowers are allowed, though some shockingly have cellphones. It makes sense: Use technology, but don’t base your survival on it. That’s a good habit.

Pine Ridge Cafe is another institution that really exemplifies a balanced approach to the complications of modern society. So does the town it’s situated in, called Belleville. Belleville is hard to find. What I meant to say was it’s hard to situate. The town of Belleville is laid out like a large village, with only a minimal ‘downtown.’ There’s a historical society in the town center. Otherwise, there’s no sign of gentrification. The town is all business, and that business is agriculture.

Look below in the photos section, and you’ll see how, although the region is bucolic, it’s also a food machine, plain and simple. Even in the ‘wilderness’ of Pennsylvania, if an industry does exist, it will be farming. It won’t be like the ‘hobby farms’ you’ll find in other states. This ain’t a hobby, here. It’s life.

In that context, Pine Ridge is a bit of an apparent outlier. It looks like the trendy coffee shop of a town in the Philadelphia countryside. The establishment is both new and old. It used to be called Taste of the Valley. The latter was a fixture of the region for years, and it was only within the past year and a half that it changed to its new name and mission. Although I have no idea what it looked like in its original iteration, the newer business is clearly coffee-focused. It’s also obviously a product of Mennonite roots, with a straightforward interior absent of kitsch. There were a few nods to outdoor culture, notably the names of some of the coffee blends offered. Bigfoot Blend, Ridge Runner…someone likes the great outdoors.

The coffee really threw me for a loop. I took the Ridge Runner as an homage to my love of the Appalachian Trail. A Ridgerunner is either a person who lives in the high mountain regions of the Appalachian ridgelines or works directly for the Trail in some capacity. That’s often describing the same background. Ridge Runner the coffee was a dark roast; a mix of Ethiopian and Sumatran. True to form, it was intensely earthy. I picked up hints of pipe tobacco and deep smoke. This probably got roasted for a long time, and no, that’s not a ‘defect’ unless you consider deviation from the light roast trend to be heresy. Nutmeg might have been there, too, but I can’t be sure. It was quite smooth on the front, even as the back end revealed those complexities.

Point of fact: The coffee is also their own. That’s right; it’s Pine Ridge Coffee, roasted by the Yoders, Trent, and Leah (who I must speak to sometime!). The website says it was started back in 2022. That would jive with what we’ve seen during this Journey lately; rural coffee roasters cropping up and turning hard times into great opportunities.

That’s the American spirit, though. Or maybe it’s just the best of human nature. I hold that the ideals of the American Revolution tend to bring out the best in people, so I suppose I take both sides. Kind of like this region does. On the way through town, I saw an unexpected rainbow flag on a house. That just goes to show that nobody and nothing is simple. I wonder what we’ll find as we plumb the depths of the Pennsylvania Wilds. Until next time, stay caffeinated.