The beginning was nowhere as beautiful as the new coffee table book that brings Anna and Tyler Nash’s journey as owners of Innova Coffee to a close.
It was the most desperate time in the Nashes’ lives. When a business investment deal tanked, the parents of four – each from country club families – were about to lose their new custom home. At 50, Tyler was out of his industrial sales job and clocking in at 5 a.m. alongside teenagers at a local coffee shop. Anna took on side jobs, too, learning to cut hair for neighborhood children to earn extra cash for $10 a head. Anything to make ends meet.
“It’s hard financially — it’s hard on your family,” Tyler said. “There was tremendous shame. My self-esteem was so low. The circles we ran in, there was a lot of pressure. I put it on myself.”
It was a waking nightmare they tried to hide from family and friends. However, their reality couldn’t stay under wraps.
Then, out of nowhere — again and again — came what the Nashes saw as divine opportunities, support and profound personal payoffs — often from their connections and interactions with others.
Sure, there were plenty of stressful times. But within a few years, burdens blossomed into blessings. Tyler’s love of coffee led the couple to launch their own coffee shop and cafe, Innova, open for seven years until inflation shut things down in 2023.
After closing, Anna and Tyler wanted to share some of the cafe’s most popular recipes. But a bigger inspiration took hold — an entire book — a love letter of sorts — to the people and experiences of Innova that reset the course of the Nashes’ very lives.
In “Refreshing Hospitality: The Art of Welcoming,” published last month, Anna and Tyler translate their life and heart lessons into short stories, tips, anecdotes and, of course, recipes. The book mixes short stories with recipes and reflection prompts. The authors have also planned a series of small, personal gatherings, a larger launch event and, later, hands-on “refreshing experiences” with local artisans and hosts, reminiscent of the warmth long generated in Innova.
The book’s theme, from both their male and female perspective, shares how to start small and make hospitality feel more a part of everyday life, regardless of hosting savvy. Anna and Tyler aim to teach those practices in modest, nonintimidating settings and to show that hospitality need not require perfection or expense to be part of everyday life. The main idea: It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be at your home. Going to the kids’ ballpark? Take some extra hot dogs and pass them out to the people around you. Start a conversation. Start a friendship. Bonus points if those people don’t look or think exactly like you.
Anna described staff and customers as authentic influences who helped the couple see people beyond their previous social circles. Customers had become friends. She said running the shop widened and redefined their view of ‘community.’
“It changed us,” Anna said. “It gave us a different lens to see all of humanity. We had been in a box with our communities and our families and our friends. I don’t say this in a negative way, because some of these people still are our friends. But we hadn’t seen far beyond the country club, church, private schools. Our world was vanilla.”
Tyler agreed, adding, “God used that to free me from, ‘You have to be this. You have to look like this. Even if you’re not that, you need to look that way. You need to look like you have it together.’ I wanted to measure up. Then I discovered something I never would have discovered because I was doing something out of desperation.”
Coffee and café were both a business and a classroom. Staff and regulars were part of their education. The team they intentionally hired and the customers who returned helped the owners see different walks of life and reshape assumptions about who belonged in their space.
The pair leaned into small, repeatable gestures that signaled care. Anna suggested a tiny shortbread on drink saucers that customers noticed and remembered. Tyler said small, unexpected items “mean so much” because they arrive unannounced and make people feel seen. And yes, that shortbread recipe is in the book.
Recipes and small food offerings that began as quick additions at the counter became part of the pair’s language of hospitality. They turned simple plates and baked goods into repeatable rituals — signature biscuits, shortbread nibbles and other touches meant to make guests feel nurtured. The couple even experimented beyond the café: they run an Airbnb, craft small guest experiences and use those moments to refine how they host people across different settings.
The book celebrates the rocky path to their greatest life lessons and what they hope will inspire and delight others.
Anna offered simple counsel for people facing sudden life changes: persevere and focus on purposeful work.
“Just give it another day or two or week,” she said. “Don’t think too far out. Your best life might be ahead of you. Pursue a life of purpose. I think that our richest days (so far) have been in our 50s and 60s.”
“Refreshing Hospitality: The Art of Welcoming” is now available, in time for holiday inspiration or gift-giving. Find out more about the Nashes’ Neighborhood Gatherings and Refreshing Experiences events at refreshinghospitality.com.