Roughly 20 guests, including local business owners and members of the Oxford Chamber of Commerce, gathered to celebrate the next chapter of the local business Velvet Ditch Coffee Roasters on Thursday, Nov. 7. 

Owner Lesley Vance Walkington was a part of the group that broke ground at the future brick and mortar location of her establishment. Vance Walkington invited guests to try her products by setting up a table on the front porch of the house — complete with her various coffee blends, donuts and custom-made sugar cookies. 

“I love to connect people, and my background and everything that I’ve done professionally brings me to this moment where all my skill sets get used in Velvet Ditch Coffee Roasters,” Vance Walkington said. “I get to meet wonderful people and collaborate with all my friends at the Chamber as well as my business associates.” 

Nestled in a tiny nook off of North Lamar Boulevard, the location is a ruby red house that holds a multitude of stories within its walls. The house started as a service station in the 1940s before becoming the home where Linda Echols’ parents raised their family. With the symbolic and physical ground-breaking ceremony, the house’s new life has begun as a café and gathering spot.

Echols talked about the background of her former home and how it influenced her decision to allow Vance Walkington to use it for her business. 

“I’m excited. She called me after we closed our house. I wanted either a family to take care of it or (a) business because this is getting all commercial,” Echols said. “We were very excited because my daddy was a big coffee drinker. She sent me a voicemail while we were visiting our grandchildren and said ‘let’s get together in town,’ so we met over at the house.”

Vance Walkington wishes to highlight the significance of the former use of the location with her new cafe.

“I want to honor that history,” Vance Walkington said. “I want to share the history and share the stories. She’s got a portrait that she’s going to share with us. We’re going to put (it) on the wall, so there’s so many fun things about this property.”

Tony Deal, a chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, expressed excitement about what the groundbreaking meant for Velvet Ditch, especially as a patron of the business. 

“She is a new member of (the Chamber of Commerce). I think it’s going to be great,” Deal said. “Coffee shops are actually a really huge thing, and I actually get to have her coffee every Friday morning at the Chamber because she displays it and puts it up for us to drink at our events that we have.”

Vance Walkington reiterated her determination to improve the Oxford job market. 

“I hear so many students say that they have to go back home to get a job. And I was thinking the whole time, what can I do? How can I build job opportunities? In the coffee field, there’s a lot of people in the chain: the coffee roaster, the business side, the marketing, the public relations,” Vance Walkington said. “There’s going to the farm and meeting with the farmers and building new connections and new relationships, so you can work directly with the farmers. So there’s a lot of job opportunities in this business that we’re going to create.”

Over the next few months, Vance Walkington will be renovating the house with plans to open the cafe in spring of 2025.