Lemon poppy seed, triple berry and pumpkin cheesecake muffins are specialties at The Koffie Knechtion, a South Sioux City coffee shop.
Justin Wan, Sioux City Journal
Jill Pickinpaugh, of Wakefield, Neb., and her daughter Leah Gomez, of South Sioux City, talk over lattes in the gazebo outside the Koffie Knechtion.
Ally Karsyn, Sioux City Journal
After a 27-year career in the airline industry, Maureen Knecht discovered her passion was in food. She and husband Darwin Knecht opened The Koffie Knechtion inside an unused building on the acreage, at 419 Golf Road in South Sioux City.
Justin Wan, Sioux City Journal
The Koffie Knechtion in South Sioux City opened in August 2014. The coffee shop also sells hanging pots and other plants.
Ally Karsyn, Sioux City Journal
The Koffie Knechtion in South Sioux City opened in August 2014. The coffee shop also sells hanging pots and other plants.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY | On a summer day, the smell of flowers wafts from hanging baskets outside of a quaint coffee shop on the edge of town. Binki, a long-haired black cat, lounges on a chair by the front door and greets incoming customers with a meow.
Inside, the indulgent aroma of steamed milk and espresso wraps the coffee-crazed masses in a warm embrace. A mother and daughter stop in for the first time. They order a “to-here” and a to-go cup of joe and head out to the gazebo. They talk over the quiet rush of a waterfall and the occasional cluck of egg-laying chickens in the backyard.
Throughout the morning, a handful of regulars ask the owner, “How’s the old married lady?”
A week earlier, Maureen Knecht got married in the courtyard of Koffie Knechtion, a café she opened with her husband in August 2014 at 419 Golf Road.
Before running the coffee shop, Knecht worked in the airline industry for 27 years, doing everything from de-icing and cleaning planes to loading passengers and pulling tickets. Following a divorce, she transferred to Sioux City but lost her job when Delta’s downtown reservations center closed in 2012.
She was over 50 and out of work.
“You just didn’t even know where you were going,” she said. “I couldn’t get a job making more than $10 an hour.”
She decided to stay in the area for her son and daughter, who were in high school, and went to college to improve her job prospects. She studied business at Western Iowa Tech Community College.
“I thought I was going to get a real job in an office, managing people,” she laughed from one of the barstools in her homey coffee shop. She had her green cap and gown, bearing a 2015 tassel, hanging nearby.
She graduated in May, already a business owner, barista, baker and chef at the Koffie Knechtion.
Knecht and her husband finished remodeling the rundown hog shed on the acreage in the summer of 2014. He jokingly calls it her engagement ring. But they run it together. Out in the garden, he grows lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, zucchini, watermelon, cantaloupe, beans, peas, corn, broccoli, cauliflower and more.
If she wants to make it, he’s going to grow it. They’ve really made a good connection.
After a 27-year career in the airline industry, Maureen Knecht discovered her passion was in food. She and husband Darwin Knecht opened The Koffie Knechtion inside an unused building on the acreage, at 419 Golf Road in South Sioux City.
