When John Koch set out to elevate Rusty Lantern Market’s coffee program, he wasn’t just thinking about better beans or a shinier machine — he was thinking about brand identity. What followed was a category refresh that drove a 77% increase in coffee sales and ultimately shaped the entire Gen 2 store concept. In this article, John McCauley, Partner and Director of Brand Design at Paragon Solutions, shares what that journey looked like and what other operators can take away from it.
Sometimes the biggest opportunity in a store isn’t a new concept — it’s a category you’re already running that deserves a harder look.
Coffee is the most visited category in convenience retail. Customers stop for it every morning, sometimes twice a day, and their loyalty to a great cup is nearly unshakeable. But in my experience working with c-store operators across the country, it’s also one of the most underinvested categories — not in equipment, but in thinking.
I’ve known John Koch and Rusty Lantern Markets for a long time. Our firm, Paragon Solutions, helped build the Rusty Lantern brand about a decade ago — the positioning, the store design language, the premium identity that set them apart in the New England market. John did a premium coffee program from the beginning. Barista-style drinks, quality beans, a genuine commitment to the category. The foundation was always there.
A couple of years ago, we came back together with a focused goal: rethink the coffee category across his existing stores. That meant a hard look at the space, the presentation, the branding and the messaging at every location. The results were immediate and measurable — Rusty Lantern saw a 77% increase in coffee sales following the category refresh. That number validated everything we believed about the opportunity that had been sitting there.
What came next took it even further. Building on the momentum of the category refresh, we designed the Rusty Lantern Gen 2 store — a ground-up reimagining of the entire experience built around two core pillars: a barista coffee program and a made-to-order food program. The Gen 2 store is the fullest expression of where the brand is going, and Koch has since built more Gen 2 locations across Western Maine. The commitment to premium coffee runs across the whole portfolio. The Gen 2 store just takes it to another level.
Here’s what that two-step process reinforced for me — and what I’d want any operator to consider before they look past the coffee category.
The Brand Has to Come First
The operators who get coffee right aren’t just selling a beverage — they’re creating a reason to stay. When the environment feels intentional, when the product is clearly premium, customers notice. That’s what separates a coffee destination from a coffee corner.
Rusty Lantern had a clear brand position from day one — local, craft, fresh — and Koch had always understood that coffee was central to delivering on it. As he put it when we started our category work together: “The company has certain main elements to its brand — local, craft, fresh — and positions itself at the high end of the industry. Coffee is the core offering to any food and beverage program. So, the coffee program had to align with and deliver on that brand position.”
The brand clarity was already there. What the Gen 2 store work focused on was closing the gap between that positioning and what a customer actually experienced when they walked through the door. That gap — between brand promise and in-store reality — is where most operators lose the category, even when they’re doing a lot of things right.
For Rusty Lantern, a key part of the story has been built around Coffee by Design, a well-regarded local roaster whose beans are the centerpiece of the program. Every cup — self-serve or made-to-order — is built around a premium, locally sourced bean. That commitment gave rise to the private label brand “Beans,” with store branding, marketing, packaging and custom cup design all organized around that identity. The Gen 2 store design made sure the physical environment told that same story — from the layout of the coffee bar to the design language of the space to the seating areas that invite customers to stay rather than just grab and go.
Rethinking the Space Changes Everything
The category refresh was designed to close the gap between what Rusty Lantern’s coffee program was delivering and what the brand had always promised. That meant rethinking not just equipment and layout, but how the specialty drink program was presenting itself to customers at every location. Rusty Lantern had been doing made-to-order drinks — including nitro cold brew — for years. The product was there. The space and presentation weren’t fully supporting it.
Koch reflected on this honestly: “We tended to focus more on the growing food segment to the detriment of beverage. It took us longer to get where we wanted to be.”
That’s a common pattern. Food is tangible, it’s visible, it drives ticket. Beverage — and coffee specifically — often gets treated as a given rather than an opportunity.
In the Gen 2 stores, that vision went even further. The dedicated made-to-order specialty drink section has a menu that competes directly with coffee shops. Bean-to-cup machines handle the self-serve side, delivering a consistently high-quality cup while honoring their “every cup ground fresh” promise without requiring constant labor. The staffing model evolved to match — cross-training food staff to handle beverage solved the coverage problem, simplified operations and brought costs down without sacrificing quality.
The lesson: it’s not enough to offer great coffee. The space has to make it feel worth paying for. And when the space does that job, the product sells itself.
The Experience Is the Differentiator
What separates Rusty Lantern’s program from a standard c-store coffee set isn’t just the beans or the equipment. It’s everything around them. Across the portfolio, and most visibly in the Gen 2 stores, the design creates what Koch calls a “relaxed, welcoming ambiance” — a place where someone might actually want to sit and enjoy their coffee rather than just grab it and go.
That was a deliberate design intent, not an afterthought. The Gen 2 store features dedicated seating both inside and out — comfortable, well-designed spaces that invite customers to linger. The exterior seating area in particular signals something you don’t often see at a c-store: a genuine sense of place. It tells customers before they even walk in the door that this is somewhere worth stopping.
“They do notice the extra touches and enjoy the atmosphere,” Koch says of his customers. That kind of response doesn’t happen by accident. It comes from decisions made well upstream — in the store design, in the sourcing partnerships, in the training of the people serving the drinks. Rusty Lantern has also layered in an order-ahead platform for pickup and delivery, meeting customers where their habits are heading.
The fact that Koch has continued to build new locations around the Gen 2 concept across four New England states says everything. When a store design becomes the template for your growth, you know it’s working.
What I’d Tell Any Operator Starting This Process
Koch’s advice to other operators is something I’ve come to echo in almost every client conversation.
“Since coffee is key to all convenience stores and especially to a food and beverage program, I would advise to really take your time, think through all the elements and coordinate everything around what you are trying to communicate to and offer your customers,” he said.
That’s the whole framework. Brand first, experience second, execution third. And don’t assume that because you’re already doing coffee well, there’s nothing left to gain. The category refresh we did with Rusty Lantern’s existing stores produced a 77% lift in coffee sales before a single Gen 2 store was ever built. That’s not a renovation story. That’s a focusing story — getting intentional about a category that was already there.
Rusty Lantern was already doing the work. The category refresh unlocked the results. The Gen 2 store took it to another level. That’s a repeatable story and it starts with deciding that coffee deserves your full attention.
John McCauley is Partner and Director of Brand Design at Paragon Solutions. Contact him at jmccauley@paragon4design.com. Fort Worth, Texas-based Paragon Solutions has been designing innovative convenience stores, truck-stops and specialty stores since 1986.
