History, community combine at Bradford Woods coffee shop

Imagine “The Sound of Music” with Julie Andrews’ voice supplanted by kazoos.

Sure, cacophony may come to mind. But for the folks who raggedly buzzed the melody of “Do Re Mi” during Open Mic Night, the operative word was fun.

And that’s what Christi Wilcox wants people to have when they visit Station No. 5, her specialty coffee shop and artisan market in Bradford Woods.

She and shop regular Thaddeus Popovic led the sound of kazoos to wrap up the venue’s mid-October evening of the microphone, handing out small plastic noisemakers to those who wanted to join the chorus. Prior to the finale, a series of guitarists, keyboard players and a comedienne displayed their talents during one of many community-oriented events hosted by Station No. 5.

Another will take place Nov. 8 with the first-anniversary celebration of the coffee bar, featuring a performance by the Z-Town Street Band. And the following morning is Story Time with Mimi, held the first Saturday of each month to provide younger customers with their own kind of fun.

While Station No. 5 has offered coffee — tea and treats, too — for just a year, the building’s history dates to the early 20th century a stop on the Pittsburgh, Harmony, Butler & New Castle Railway, which offered daily trolley service into the 1930s.

Among the few surviving structures along the line was the Bradford Woods station, which today is subleased to four tenants, Wilcox’s business among them.

“We live just a few doors down from here, so we’d drive by this place and would say, ‘Somebody should put a coffee shop in there,’” she said.

That someone wasn’t necessarily her — “I’d never owned a business before” — but during a 2022 visit to a shop in the building called Berry Vine Gifts, she noticed a “for sale” sign. When she mentioned it to her husband, Rick, he asked how much money the proprietor was seeking.

“The next day, I went back and said, ‘Hey, I see your business is for sale. I’d be interested in talking to you about that,’” Christi recalled. “Before we knew it, we were talking to accountants and attorneys. It just snowballed.”

Then there was the whole matter of her selling coffee.

“But we didn’t know anything about how to do that,” she acknowledged. “We just always thought somebody else should do it.”

So she decided to attend — yes, there is one — Texas Coffee School.

“They teach you from the beginning of classes, this is a bean, and then at the end of the classes, here’s how to negotiate your lease, and here’s how to open your doors, and here’s how to hire employees, and here’s how to make good coffee,” she said.

Along with her lessons came a “War and Peace”-sized manual:

“I had to mail it home because it wouldn’t fit in my luggage.”

Back at Station No. 5, the Wilcoxes redid the space to take full advantage of three walls’ worth of windows.

“Now, everywhere you look, you can see trees. What we wanted was to use that as part of our décor,” Christi explained. “It was very much a concerted effort to try to bring the outdoors in, embrace where we are and embrace our uniqueness.”

Since Bradford Woods’ founding, residents have been successful in maintaining a forested ambience, something particularly appealing for Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox, who are transplants to Western Pennsylvania by way of North Carolina, Kentucky and their native Michigan.

“We found a little cottage here in Bradford Woods. It was small, but it worked. It was move-in ready,” Christi said, and 14 months later, they moved to a house with its own historical significance: “In 1915, when Bradford Woods became a borough, those papers were signed in my basement.”

The history of Station No. 5 is commemorated with a mural near the front entrance depicting the route map for the Harmony Line, as the PHB&C Railway was better known. The older Wilcox son, Samuel, worked on the illustration, and the UPS Store in Pine handled the printing.

Samuel and his brother, Jackson, are North Allegheny Senior High School students, and some of their classmates are employed at Station No. 5.

Beyond the beverage bar is a whole other realm of the business: Lost in the Woods, featuring the wares of more than a dozen artisans.

“When you come in here and shop, you support any number of small businesses in one shopping period,” Christi Wilcox said.

An optimal time to do so may be Nov. 29, “Black Friday @ Station No. 5.” The shop opens at 8 a.m., and even more music is in store with jazz singer Jessica Lee, from 7 p.m. until closing time at 9.

Such special events, including ones involving kazoos, represent a major part of the Wilcoxes’ continuing efforts to propagate the goodwill they’ve experienced since their arrival in the Pittsburgh area.

“Making friends was so easy. People just were so inviting and nice,” Christi said. “This is our community. This is just where we belong.”