Business of the Week: Heavenly Coffeehouse and Market Serves Heart in Brooks

A Korean man who spoke very little English walked into Heavenly Coffeehouse and Market with a nearly dead phone and no idea how to get home.

He had accidentally turned the wrong direction leaving Peachtree City and somehow found himself in Brooks instead of Newnan. His phone battery was nearly dead, leaving him lost without GPS.

Nobody seemed bothered by the interruption.

One employee plugged in his phone to charge. Someone handed him a cup of coffee. Fayette County Development Authority President and CEO Niki Vanderslice grabbed a sheet of paper and began sketching a map from Brooks to Newnan while I unsuccessfully searched my admittedly mediocre Korean vocabulary—learned mostly from watching K-dramas—for something more helpful than “hello” and “thank you.”

Within a few minutes, a frustrated traveler had directions, a charged phone, and several new friends.

Brooks Mayor Dan Langford had been telling me for months that I needed to visit Heavenly.

Then Fayette County Development Authority President and CEO Niki Vanderslice suggested we meet there for coffee. News of her succession plan moved that meeting up much sooner than either of us expected, and it finally gave me an excuse to discover the little coffeehouse Langford had been talking about.

After spending a morning there, it became clear why.

Sharing a wall with the former Brooks Cannery, Heavenly Coffeehouse and Market has quietly become the kind of place where neighbors linger over coffee, local farmers sell their products, community groups gather, and even a stranger who took a wrong turn is treated like family.

“I knew that this was going to be more than just a coffee shop,” owner Cortney Ylinen said. “I wanted it to be a community hub place for giving.”

One year after opening, that vision appears to have become reality.

This weekend, Heavenly will celebrate its first anniversary with two days of festivities on Friday and Saturday, July 10–11. The celebration includes specialty drinks available only that weekend, children’s coloring contests, local vendors, raffles for free coffee and merchandise, Golden Ticket prizes hidden beneath coffee cups, and the launch of a new Pay It Forward coffee board where customers can purchase drinks for veterans, grieving neighbors, single parents, and others who could use a small act of kindness.

Built on community

Ylinen’s path to Brooks began with prayer.

After moving to the area while her husband, Rob, completed chiropractic school following a career in law enforcement, she spent 21 days praying about what she was meant to do next.

Three days later, the owner of the former Brooks Cannery building called.

“He said, ‘Hey, I heard you want to open a coffee shop. I’ve got a space for you,'” Ylinen recalled.

The building itself tells part of that story.

Before insulation covered the cinder block walls, Ylinen’s two oldest children selected 10 favorite Bible verses, wrote them on the walls, and prayed over the future coffeehouse. Those same verses now appear on Heavenly’s coffee cups.

“If the walls could talk,” she said, “that’s what they’d tell you.”

Keeping it local

The sense of community extends well beyond the coffee.

The pastries come from City Café. Much of the produce comes from local farms in Brooks and Peachtree City. Caldwell Farms supplies the beef. The cabinets, countertops, T-shirts, and many of the renovations were completed by local businesses. Most of Heavenly’s employees grew up in Brooks.

“We use all of the local items. We try to stay local as much as possible,” Ylinen said. “Everything we used was local people to support local business.”

The market refrigerator stocked with farm-fresh produce, eggs, meats, and other locally sourced products gives customers another reason to stop by, whether they’re grabbing breakfast or taking dinner home.

Inside, exposed brick walls, cozy seating, and a welcoming atmosphere invite people to stay awhile.

Ylinen estimates she knows about 90% of the people who walk through the door.

“We’ve made so many good friends from here,” she said. “This is a great community of people.”

Vanderslice is one of those regulars. When she needs an afternoon boost to finish a busy day, she skips the coffee and orders Ylinen’s homemade Loaded Lemonade with an added energy boost. If she’s in the mood for coffee instead, her go-to order is a sugar-free vanilla oat milk latte.

A gathering place for Brooks

Langford has watched that community embrace Heavenly almost from the beginning.

“I have a hard time expressing how much that shop has meant for the people of Brooks, and how much it has become our community’s gathering place for many of us,” Langford wrote in an email to The Citizen. “Part of this is because of the quality of the products and the ambience of the shop, but at least an equal part is because of Cortney’s and her husband, Rob’s, friendly demeanor and willingness to engage any customer in conversation who wants conversation.”

Langford said he stops by every weekday morning for breakfast on his way to Town Hall and is usually Heavenly’s first customer of the day. Ylinen recounted his usual order of hot chocolate and banana bread. 

“It just means so much to be able to have a coffee shop with such a personal touch in Brooks—we’ve never had anything of the sort before,” he wrote.

For Langford, Heavenly represents something even larger.

“At 63, I’m barely old enough to remember when my grandfather grilled and sold hamburgers in his store in Brooks,” he wrote. “It was the last time one was regularly able to get a prepared meal in Downtown Brooks before Heavenly Coffeeshop and Tailgate Pizza came to town, at least a 55-year gap.”

The coffeehouse has also become part of a growing village center that includes the Brooks Library, nearby small businesses, and a business incubator, giving residents more reasons than ever to spend time in downtown Brooks.

Serving others

Throughout its first year, Heavenly has looked for ways to serve beyond its front counter.

The coffeehouse adopted 14 families for Thanksgiving, collected Christmas gifts for local families, partnered with Fayette Flyers to support additional households, and regularly hosts community events. Following the anniversary celebration, Heavenly will continue that mission with a Christmas in July menu and a school supply drive scheduled for July 20–26 to benefit students at Whitewater High School and Harp’s Crossing Christian Academy.

“Our job is to serve,” Ylinen said. “Christians know that you’re put here to serve, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re serving others.”

I’d actually driven through Brooks before.

Once, after taking a wrong turn on the back roads toward Griffin.

I didn’t stop.

This time, thanks to Langford’s persistent recommendations and a long-overdue coffee meeting with Vanderslice, I finally did. Along with an excellent iced coffee and what may be one of the best mocha muffins I’ve had for breakfast, I found something that’s becoming increasingly rare: a place where people know each other’s names, notice when someone doesn’t show up for their usual order, and instinctively help a stranger find his way home.

Sometimes the best discoveries aren’t destinations you plan.

Sometimes a wrong turn leads you exactly where you were meant to be.

Heavenly Coffeehouse and Market is located at 949 Highway 85 Connector in Brooks, adjoining the former Brooks Cannery. The coffeehouse is open Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. More information, seasonal specials, and event updates are available on Heavenly Coffeehouse and Market’s Facebook page.