“Walk, Sip, Win” was the slogan for the Lane Council of Governments Coffee Shop Hop, which is exactly what Lane community members did during the month of October.
The Hop is part of LCOG’s Walktober, a city-wide campaign encouraging the community to get out there and go for a walk. During October, LCOG hosted a bird, thrift shop and tree walk. Also offered were self-guided walks around Eugene posted to the Walktober website.
The Coffee Shop Hop event partnered with 18 different coffee shops and one tea house. Every location offered a discount to those participating. Every business was listed on a printed passport that included a spot for a sticker next to each shop. If the passport holder received every sticker they could enter themselves into a raffle. There were five raffle winners, each winning a $25 gift card to the coffee shop of their choosing paid for by transportation services. The raffle closed on Nov. 11.
Passports were available to pick up the coffee shops involved. LCOG Assistant Transportation Planner Delaney Thompson said that“We [LCOG] printed 3,000 [passports] and distributed basically all of them.”
The passports are bright red with a cover of two blue birds, on a stroll, holding coffee mugs.
Artist Erick Wonderly designed this year’s Coffee Shop Hop artwork. Wonderly also recently painted a mural at Portal Tea Company, the Hop’s only non-coffee shop.
PTC is located in the heart of downtown, next to Kesey Square, and was new to the Hop this year.
Daphne Patrick, a tea tender for PTC, said that recently the community’s favorite drinks are “the chocolate matte, vanilla rose and pumpkin spice, people really love them.”
PTC offered a 15% off discount for those participating in the Hop. “We get a lot more business when the college students come back around, but I definitely saw people utilizing it [the discount],” Patrick said.
Nestled in the Fifth Street Market shopping center, Magpies Coffee Shop offered a discount of 10% for those participating in the Hop. Magpies also participated in the event last year.
“I think it was fun,” Claire Larson, a barista at Magpies, said. “They [community members] got to try our coffee for the first time which in turn made them want to come back.” Larson said their most popular drink is their caramel latte, one of the syrup flavors that is made in-house.
Dark Pine also participated in the event last year. “I think it’s a pretty good program,” Tanner Little, the owner of Dark Pine, said. “I’m always looking for opportunities to get new faces to try us out and that is what the Coffee Shop Hop does for not just me but every coffee shop that participates.” The shop offered a discount of $1.
Every shop that participated last year decided to partake again.
“It was nice to work with the business owners again because they were so kind and really jazzed,” Thompson said.
Additionally, three new shops joined the Hop: Havana Cafe, PTC and Park Street Cafe.
Thompson and their team plan to get started on planning the 2025 Coffee Shop Hop after May is Bike Month, another month-long campaign put on by transportation services, concluding in early June. “I’m just really hoping it will continue to grow,” Thompson said.
