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ORAL HISTORY

Kayla Orr

Primitive Coffee Company

Kayla Orr left her hometown in Florida to take a job in Charlotte, NC, in early 2020. Soon after, the pandemic and personal loss pushed her and her husband to search for a new life elsewhere. “We feel like we just kinda, were led to make a decision to slow down our lives,” she said about her move to the foothills of Virginia.

As she runs her business today, Kayla leverages experience baking with her mother and grandmother and working in catering at a smokehouse chain in Florida. She bakes scones, biscuits, cookies, and more from home and runs Primitive Coffee, her coffee shop and market in Meadows of Dan. While her husband works on their farm, Kayla serves up coffee, breakfast, and lunch and hosts a farmers’ market and other events for tourists and locals. She also uses the rest of the storefront to offer the products of local craftspeople and food producers, complemented by regional antiques. In the future, Orr would like to expand the bakery and catering side of the business, but she does not want to lose touch with the cafe’s ability to create community: “I would say most of our job here is talking to people, to be honest. We make coffee and we make teas and we’re giving people baked goods, but I think the coolest thing is we get to know people and hear about their lives.”