BROKEN ARROW, Okla. — A long-vacant building in Broken Arrow’s Rose District is about to become home to two new businesses that residents and city officials have been working toward for years.
The District Mercantile Grocery and Deli and the Wanderlust Coffee Roastery are set to open at the corner of Dallas and Main streets, filling a 2,200-square-foot space that sat empty and boarded up for nearly four years after Spoke House Bicycles and the Rattlesnake Café left.
“I’ve been with the city 7 years and I’ve really attempted to try to get a local market down here the whole time I’ve been here. It’s badly needed and our citizens wanted it,” said Brent Brassfield, City of Broken Arrow Business Retention and Development Coordinator.
Both new businesses are owned by Randall Ryan, who began his entrepreneurial journey in the Rose District more than a decade ago selling coffee at the farmers market from a mobile trike before opening his first brick-and-mortar coffee shop.
“I actually started 11 years ago at the Rose District Farmers Market selling cups of coffee, just building the brand from the ground up,” Ryan said…