Jackson Free Press

Over the course of his 28 years of service in the U.S. Air Force, Col. Mike Odom and many of his fellow soldiers became well acquainted with coffee.

"When you're deployed with the military, you never know when you'll be awake, so coffee becomes an essential staple," Odom says.

Odom, who now owns a coffee shop of his own called the CoffeeBAR at the Outlets of Mississippi, has been to more than 50 countries and tried coffee from most of them, but out of all the varieties, he holds espresso in particularly 
high regard. He says he fell in love with it when he was working as a spokesman for the Air Force with a 30-nation NATO military contingent in Sarajevo, Bosnia, in 2002.

"You had people from all over the world working in my office, dealing with the media every day, and thankfully, most everyone spoke multiple languages including English, so I was able to get to know a lot of the people there," Odom says.

"I took to hanging out with a group of guys from Italy who were part of a security police force called the Multinational Security Unit. Their military had better food than anyone else there, so I would always eat lunch with them, and one day, they invited me to their barracks to try some Italian espresso." Odom says that espresso is so big in Italy that the government often regulates the price just to make sure everyone can afford it. He would get in line as much as he could to get more of the espresso they served the troops.

"It's long days and long nights with the military, and espresso gives you that kick you need," he says.

"The espresso they make in Milan in Italy remains my favorite to this day."

Odom decided to follow his dream of owning his own store after retiring from the military, but it was chocolate, rather than coffee, that he started with. He began with the purchase of a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory franchise in Ridgeland in 2012, and opened a second location with a U Swirl Frozen Yogurt inside at the Outlets of Mississippi in 2013. Late last year, he added a coffee shop to his family of stores with the opening of CoffeeBAR, also at the Outlets of Mississippi.

CoffeeBAR opened in the Outlets in December 2014 as a sister store to Odom's Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory franchise there, but the CoffeeBAR itself is not a franchise.

"When I first talked to my wife, Emilie, about opening a business, I said that we really need to think about something that people will always want to buy," Odom says. "We sat down and talked about it and agreed that people would always buy chocolate, coffee, beer, wine and cold desserts like ice cream and frozen yogurt. Now, I can offer all those things with my shops."

The space the CoffeeBAR now occupies housed another coffee shop called Old South Coffee House when the Outlets first opened, but it only remained open for five months before it closed down. Cathy Hackshaw, general manager of the Outlets, approached Odom in November 2014 and asked if he could put his experience running two successful businesses of his own to use in opening a new coffee shop in the space. Odom agreed, and decided to open a shop with a "Southern cool blues" vibe, as he calls it, that could also serve as a fun place for shoppers to relax for a break and listen to music.

"We're also looking into adding entertainment here on the weekends," Odom says.

"If I can get local musicians in here, we could turn this into a great entertainment venue. Because we're in what's called a resort area, we can have things going on until one in the morning and host live events if we want."

While Odom's business model for running the CoffeeBAR is more or less the same as Rocky Mountain, he had more challenges getting it up and running smoothly, starting with getting people to know it was even there.

"We're not in the food court here, and people think of the food court right away when they go to the mall," Odom says. "We need people to know we're here and that we have beer and wine as well, which is unusual for a coffee shop. When they do find out, they're often pleasantly surprised. Some don't even know it's legal to sell alcohol in Rankin County, let alone at the Outlets."

Odom's approach to advertising the CoffeeBAR involves signage and the seemingly simple act of hanging out in front of his shop and striking up conversation with passers-by. It's a practice more storeowners than just Odom engage in, but he jokingly calls himself more "aggressive" about it than others.

"I come out and ask people questions, let them know what we have," Odom says. "I especially want guys to know that this place can be their 'man chair,' a place for guys where they can come in and hang out while their significant other shops, like the chairs some clothing stores have for guys to wait on. I don't mind this place being a 'woman chair' either, of course. People are always happy to have a coffee shop no matter who they are, especially because there had been a long gap without one here at the Outlets."

The CoffeeBAR offers a wide assortment of coffees, frappes, espressos, mochas and more, all made with coffee beans from Prodigy, a local roastery in Flowood. The shop also offers merlot, cabernet and chardonnay wines, and Suzy B craft beer from Southern Prohibition in Hattiesburg, with plans in place to add more local craft beers to the menu in the future.

Some of the specialty blends available at the CoffeeBAR are the Ssippi Smore, an espresso mixed with chocolate and toasted marshmallows; a cinnamon bun frappe made with white chocolate, brown cinnamon and sugar-cinnamon that smells and tastes just like the real thing; and a salty nut frappe made with white chocolate, salted caramel, hazelnut, coconut and macadamia nuts.

The shop also has grilled ham and cheese Paninis served with chips and homemade tomato soup, along with wings, hotdogs, nachos and other "bar food" items, as Odom describes it. For dessert, the CoffeeBAR has local goodies such as a signature chocolate and pecan baklava from Demir's in Byram, and cheesecake from Jubilations in West Point, available in pecan, turtle pecan and "supreme" flavors.

CoffeeBAR at the Outlets of Mississippi (200 Bass Pro Drive, Pearl) is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sundays from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. For more information, call 601-540-6301.