Is Anthem Coffee - Downtown Puyallup Woke?

Company Overview

Anthem Coffee's downtown Puyallup cafe at 210 West Pioneer is the flagship of one of Washington's most distinctive family-owned coffee companies. The story began in late 2006, when the Reynolds family, Larry and Janie and their son Bryan, bought a Forza Coffee franchise in downtown Puyallup and ran it into the top tier of the franchise system. When licensing fees doubled, the family walked away from the franchise and reinvented themselves: over a single 72-hour renovation, the shop became a vintage-styled independent coffeehouse, and on November 1, 2011, Anthem Coffee & Tea opened simultaneously in Puyallup and Tacoma.

Today the company operates roughly nine locations across two states. In Washington: downtown Puyallup, a drive-thru in Sunrise Village, a cafe in the Sunrise medical complex, two Tacoma shops in Point Ruston and Old Town, and downtown Tacoma. In Arizona, the family acquired and rebranded Ebb + Flow Coffee locations in 2023, adding shops in Litchfield Park and Verrado in Buckeye. The menu runs from classic espresso drinks to tea, pastries, pizza, beer, and wine, and the company rents out its coffee cart and spaces for events. Coffee is sourced through Dillanos Coffee Roasters of Sumner, Washington, a direct-trade roaster a few miles up the road. The brand motto, live loud, love louder, is not a marketing agency's invention; it comes directly from the family's own story.

The Family Story Behind The Name

What separates Anthem from every corporate coffee chain is why it exists. Larry and Janie Reynolds responded to a foster-care presentation by becoming foster parents to eight children and adopting four. One of their daughters had lived in twelve different homes before her fifth birthday. The family's word for the hospitality they learned in that crucible is heroic hospitality, the idea that every customer who walks in may be having the hardest day of their life, and that a coffee shop can be the place where they are seen. Bryan and Alicia Reynolds carry the second generation of the business, and the founding narrative has been documented consistently by South Sound Business, the Tacoma News Tribune, and community press for over a decade. This is a company whose values were forged at a kitchen table, not in a brand-strategy offsite.

ESG & Sustainability

Anthem publishes no ESG report and chases no sustainability certifications, which is typical for a family restaurant group of its size. Its meaningful environmental story is the quiet kind: a multi-location company that still buys its coffee from a direct-trade roaster in the same county, keeping its supply chain short, local, and accountable by relationship rather than by audit.

Readers should not confuse the absence of an ESG bureaucracy with an absence of stewardship. Local sourcing, durable neighborhood cafes, and a business built to employ people for years are sustainability practices that predate the acronym.

DEI Programs

No DEI department, diversity quota, equity statement, or identity-based hiring program appears anywhere in Anthem's public footprint. The company's hiring pages talk about character and hospitality, and its guiding-principles language is built around service, family, and community rather than demographic categories.

In an industry where the large chains now run pride-of-place activism campaigns, a coffee company whose central inclusion message is that every human being who walks in deserves heroic hospitality is making the older and better argument.

LGBTQ+ Advocacy

Anthem runs no Pride campaigns, sponsors no Pride events, and does not appear on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index. Its seasonal and community marketing revolves around local events, coffee education, and its Arizona expansion.

For shoppers who want their coffee dollars free of corporate politics, this is a clean record.

Political Activity

No PAC, lobbying expenditure, or partisan political posture is associated with Anthem Coffee & Tea. The family's public identity is foster care and adoption advocacy, which is a personal ministry rather than a political campaign, and their press coverage across fifteen years contains no partisan endorsements.

Coffee, Rooms, and the Second Generation

The supplier relationship is the quiet backbone of the company. Dillanos Coffee Roasters, based in Sumner a few miles from Puyallup, is one of the Northwest's respected direct-trade roasters, and Anthem's decision to buy from a neighbor rather than a national commodity supplier keeps both the supply chain and the money inside Pierce County. The food program goes well beyond pastry cases: the full menu covers espresso drinks and tea alongside pizza, and several locations pour beer and wine, which turns the cafes into all-day gathering spaces rather than morning-only drive-bys.

The company has also built a second business inside the first, renting its coffee cart and its spaces for weddings, meetings, and events, and the guiding-principles page it publishes reads like a family covenant rather than an HR document. With the Arizona expansion through the Ebb + Flow acquisition in 2023, the second generation of the Reynolds family now operates a genuinely bi-state company, and the downtown Puyallup shop remains the original: the renovated former franchise location where the whole story started in 2006.

Consumer Impact

Anthem Coffee is close to a perfect Buy Woke Free profile: a family business born from foster-care and adoption sacrifice, sourcing locally, expanding carefully across two states, and keeping its values in the shop instead of in a political campaign. Every latte bought at 210 West Pioneer supports that model directly.

• Category: family-owned specialty coffeehouse group, Washington and Arizona
• Woke footprint: none found across ESG, DEI, Pride advocacy, and political spending
• Distinctives: heroic hospitality culture rooted in fostering and adoption, Dillanos direct-trade sourcing, coffee cart and venue rental
• Locations: downtown Puyallup flagship plus eight additional Washington and Arizona cafes
• Best for: everyday coffee, meetings, event catering, and anyone voting with their wallet against corporate coffee activism

Find your anthem, as the brand puts it. For values-based shoppers in the South Sound, this is about as good as it gets.