In sheet music, a tacet symbolizes a break, a rest, a pause. It’s that silent moment of peace between frenzied movements. A breath of quiet before jumping back in. To Laura and Stephen Oswalt, local music teachers turned coffee-cart-connoisseurs, this sense of calm is exactly what they believe the art of coffee should encapsulate.
Laura, from Sherrard, WV, and Pittsburgh-born Stephen met in college at WVU and spent some time post-grad living in Arizona and North Carolina before finding their way home to Wheeling in 2020. By 2023, their increasing longing for the big-city-style, small-batch, hand-roasted coffee that had been available in their previous homes—combined with some finance-induced creativity—resulted in one of Wheeling’s most beloved local businesses: Tacet Coffee Cart. A mobile coffeeshop that sets up everywhere from the Wheeling Arts Festival, to events on the top floor of Waterfront Hall, even to backstage at the Star Lake Amphitheater. As Laura puts it, “mobile life is great because you can go where the people are.” The coffee cart has been the perfect start up for two busy people, allowing the pair to jump into the venture while keeping their full-time jobs as local elementary school music teachers and not having to worry about the costly overheads that come with running a brick-and-mortar shop.
Leveraging the success of the cart, the couple then decided to stand apart from the local competition even further by hand-roasting their coffee themselves, an undertaking that had been a goal from the beginning. These days, Tacet coffee beans are not only sold in retail locations across Wheeling, but supplied wholesale to local businesses such as Brew Keepers, Elle & Jacks, and Waterfront Hall, who use Tacet espresso to create ‘latte’ stouts or make espresso martinis and affogatos. They particularly like to work with very light roast coffees, specialty roasts, and experimental flavors from around the world, currently roasting about 1,300 pounds a year between retail and wholesale. The success of the roasting has led to a shift in their immediate plans for the business, away from opening a storefront for now and focusing instead on expanding their roasting operations.
As for “Why Wheeling?” the couple fondly believes there is something special about coming home, especially with Wheeling seeing the growth and progress it has over even just the past few years, despite having a smaller customer pool than they may see in a bigger city. “In Wheeling,” Laura explains, “you still feel special, you still feel visible to your community…it just felt like the right place to be.” Stephen agrees, saying “Every town should have a coffee roaster…so, here that’s going to be us!” They feel a sense of satisfaction from being part of Wheeling’s growing community and business development, and see their business as a niche contribution to what makes Wheeling so special. The two run the cart mostly on their own, with the occasional help from family members on days they know they’ll be very busy, another benefit of living in this area. Plus, the mobility of the cart allows them to take opportunities in other cities, truly giving them the best of both worlds.
Two and a half years into this venture, Laura and Stephen still put almost everything they make from the cart back into the business or into savings, hoping to expand and continue to bring new, exciting coffee to Wheeling and focus on high quality, unique experiences.
You can buy Tacet drinks or coffee beans yourself! Follow them on social media to see where the cart will be set up next or buy whole beans and pre-ground coffee from them directly at the cart, or at Public Market, the Wheeling Artisan Center Shop, or online for pick up or delivery.
