Our Sister Projects
The Carter House Collective didn't appear out of nowhere.
It grew out of two other projects we've built, both rooted in the same belief: that small Kentucky towns are worth showing up for.
Kangaroo Ridge Farms
It started with coffee. Kangaroo Ridge Farms is our coffee shop, right across the street from The Carter House Collective on Second Street. As coffee shop owners in a downtown still waiting on its comeback, we kept asking ourselves the same question: what could we do to bring people back?
The shop grew. Customers kept asking what was next. The community kept showing up. Eventually KRF outgrew its four walls, and the answer to that question became The Carter House Collective. KRF brings the people, the operations, and the heart behind it. The coffee shop is still pouring across the street, and it's still where all of this began.
The Kentucky Coffee Trail
Before the Collective, we asked that same question on a bigger scale. We watched millions of travelers pass through Kentucky every year while small towns full of history and charm got skipped, because nobody gave them a reason to stop. So we built one.
The Kentucky Coffee Trail launched in late 2025, a tech-enabled tourism platform that now connects over 70 independent coffee shops across all nine of Kentucky's tourism regions. It has a digital passport app, it's been featured in the Courier Journal and USA Today, and it was nominated for Kentucky New Business of the Year. It's backed by a $10,000 Invest 606 grant and a $6,000 SOAR Innovation grant. Coffee is the hook. Sending travelers, and their dollars, into overlooked small towns is the point.
Get Your Kentucky Coffee Trail Passport Here
Two projects, one mission: give people a reason to stop, slow down, and spend a little time in the small towns that have always deserved it. The Carter House Collective is the next reason.