Lisa Goolsby found the deeper meaning of her business – the undercurrent of purpose beneath the day-to-day operations at Wired Coffee Bar in Ooltewah – while drinking a cup of coffee in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Finding the café where she ordered her cup of brew had been easy. She merely stepped into a mall near the university where she teaches marketing a couple of months each year, took in the cluster of coffee shops inside and chose one almost at random.
“Vietnam is the second-largest coffee-producing country in the world,” Goolsby says. “It’s coffee shop, coffee shop, coffee shop. Inside that mall, there’s a Starbucks, a local Starbucks-style coffee bar and three other coffee shops. Coffee is everywhere.”
While sipping her brew, Goolsby discovered something else about Vietnamese coffee beyond its ubiquity: the way it reflects culture.
Unlike in the United States, where cups of coffee are often thrust through drive-thru windows and consumed on the move, coffee in Vietnam is an invitation to slow down. To stop, sit and savor not just the drink but also the moment itself. The way Goolsby describes it, it’s as if the only thing moving in the café is the steam curling up from the cup.
“We’re so rushed in the U.S.,” she says. “People in other countries take more time to enjoy things.”
Goolsby was already several years into ownership of Wired when she made that observation. And it fit neatly with why she opened the shop in the first place.
Opportunity calls
While teaching marketing full time at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Goolsby identified an opportunity that would change her life. In stark contrast to her own college experience in Southern California, there was no central place where students could gather to study and socialize together. There was the library, where groups could convene in hushed circles, but there was no student center.
“I was assigning group projects, and while my students could go to the library, there was no food or drink there,” she recalls.
The surrounding community offered little alternative. Though nearby Ooltewah was growing, it too lacked a place where people could meet over coffee to talk business or linger with friends over a hot drink.
Goolsby decided to fill the gap.
“I wanted a place where people could gather and build community,” she says. “Between the student population and the growth that was taking place in Ooltewah, I felt like there were enough people to support it.”
An idea takes shape
It’s hard to imagine an American city – even a small but fast-growing one like Ooltewah – without a coffee shop on every other corner and tucked into the middle of many blocks. Coffee in the U.S. might not quite rival Vietnam in ubiquity, but cafés are plentiful and their product easily accessible.
That was not the case in Ooltewah in 2014, however, when Goolsby opened Wired Coffee Bar in the Cambridge Square shopping center. At the time, she says, it was the first of its kind locally.
“It was me, and then Starbucks came along,” she says. “I was here before Dunkin’, Scooter’s, Morning Brew, 7 Brew – all of them.”
Clearly, Goolsby had been right about there being enough coffee lovers in Ooltewah to support not only Wired but a growing slate of competitors. While some business owners might bristle at an influx of rivals after staking an early claim in a market, that’s not how Goolsby sees it. Instead, she welcomes the diversity of products the other shops bring.
“There’s plenty of space for everyone – and everyone has a strong niche,” she notes. “Morning Brew does great food. 7 Brew has customizable Red Bull drinks. We know what Starbucks is. Scooter’s is like Starbucks but with more sugary drinks. I’m just trying to stay in my lane with quality coffee.
“We can make all those other things, but at the end of the day, when I look at my sales, it’s mostly black coffee – because it’s good coffee.”
Behind every cup
Good coffee rarely happens by accident. Behind each warm, rich sip is both an artist and a scientist, each bringing knowledge and craft to the brew long before it reaches a cup. At Wired, Goolsby is the scientist. When she isn’t tending to the books – the work that keeps the lights on – she’s thinking about soil conditions in Costa Rica, coffee-to-water ratios, roasting processes and the hundred small decisions that shape a great cup.
“I want to offer an elevated drink experience,” she says. “I’ve spent time in coffee bars around the world, and I’m drawn to places where things are a little better.”
For Goolsby, good coffee begins with organic beans she can trace back to the soil where they were grown. All of Wired’s coffee is organic, she says, and she can tell customers exactly where each bean comes from, whether it’s part of a blend or a single-origin offering. That transparency extends across Wired’s sourcing, which includes farms in Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
“I buy from a supplier who allows us to choose the farms and learn about the coffee,” Goolsby says. “I want family farms – organic and mold-free.”
Goolsby also wants Wired’s coffee to be socially responsible, which led her to choose a supplier that contributes to a farmer fund ensuring growers are paid fair wages and able to produce coffee sustainably. Those choices tighten Wired’s margins, she says, but she remains committed to offering a cup at a price she believes customers can still afford.
“People say, ‘I can’t believe a cup of coffee costs $5,’” she says. “And I think, ‘I can’t believe we can sell it to you for $5.’ It’s a little bean that goes through an entire process – sometimes hand-picked, washed or sun-dried. It’s a major production.”
Adding new products helps increase revenues. Since moving to Oakies Plaza at 9515 Lee Highway in early 2025, for example, Goolsby has expanded Wired’s offerings to include in-house roasting, along with custom blends and private labeling for local businesses. As with Wired’s brewed coffee, quality remains the guiding principle.
“Coffee is only as good as the beans and the roast,” she says. “Making sure it’s freshly roasted and hasn’t been sitting around forever – that matters.”
Where art meets espresso
The artistic side of the equation at Wired lives behind the counter, in the baristas who greet customers with easy smiles and then prepare the cups of coffee that drew them there in the first place.
“The ratios, the way you steam the milk, how the espresso shots come out – that’s science,” Goolsby explains. “The art is how the coffee looks and how it tastes. You want people behind the bar who do it every day and understand how everything comes together.”
In so many words, Goolsby is acknowledging that her own focus on the business and technical sides of Wired leaves little time to practice the craft often enough to match her baristas’ skills.
“They’re great at what they do,” she says. “I don’t make drinks often enough to be at that level. People come in and say, ‘I want the owner to make my drink,’ and I tell them, ‘No – trust me, you don’t want that.’”
Even within this community of coffee artists, there’s still room for a scientist. Chief among them is Goolsby’s daughter, Jennifer, who’s not only drawn the artful murals that line Wired’s walls but also developed many of the specialty drinks customers return for.
“Jennifer comes up with our seasonal drinks,” Goolsby says. “In the fall, she created the Sweater Weather Latte. We also do drinks for non-coffee drinkers, like steamed spiced apple cider, as well as eggnog lattes, peppermint mochas and a spiced blood orange tea steamed with cinnamon.”
A life reoriented
Coffee was far from Goolsby’s first pursuit in life. Long before she became a small-business owner, she built an academic career that included a doctorate in marketing, an MBA and decades of teaching.
Her first professional chapter unfolded in health care marketing, an all-consuming field that regularly stretched into 70-hour workweeks. The pace was unsustainable once she had children, and her priorities shifted.
That academic career eventually put her on a collision course with Southern Adventist, where she was teaching when she first opened Wired. She says her decision to open her coffee shop on Saturdays became a flashpoint.
“Southern Adventist fired me because Wired was open on Saturday,” Goolsby says. “I said, ‘I opened it because the students have nowhere to go on Saturday – you shut down all the buildings.’ And they said, ‘Either close it or we’ll fire you.’ And I said, ‘Go for it.’”
The fallout reshaped her professional life. After being let go, Goolsby moved fully into online education, a shift that provided the flexibility she needed as a single mother and new business owner. Today, she teaches full-time online and serves as department chair of marketing at Colorado Tech.
As the years passed, Wired became exactly what Goolsby had hoped it would be: a gathering place. Not long after she opened, a local pastor told her a weekly Bible study had taken root there, helping to solidify the café’s role in the community.
“He said, ‘I’ve had a Bible study every week since you opened,’” Goolsby says. “That’s a lot of Bible studies.”
Parking lot blues
Like many small-business owners, Goolsby has faced her share of challenges, but few proved as persistent as parking at her second location, the coffee shop on Old Main Street. While the site brought visibility, it also introduced daily frustrations that steadily wore down the business.
Regular customers would spot her around town and apologize, telling her they’d tried to stop in but gave up after circling the block without finding a space. The problem only worsened when owners of a neighboring building began having cars towed. Heavy traffic along the corridor added another layer of risk, with cars constantly pulling in and out.
As access became more difficult, the numbers told the story.
“I kept watching sales go down, down, down, and there aren’t a lot of options in Ooltewah unless you want to build something from the ground up,” Goolsby says.
Relief came when a new owner purchased Oakies Plaza, a rundown strip center Goolsby initially dismissed. Once she saw the transformation underway, her doubts faded. The owner repaved the parking lot, dramatically improving access and visibility, and renovated the buildings. After shutting down for several months to complete the build-out, the coffee bar reopened in its new home.
Sales have rebounded, though Wired has not yet returned to its earlier highs. Even so, the steady stream of customer apologies has faded now that people can pull in, park and walk straight through the door.
Grounded in purpose
The deeper meaning of Goolsby’s work – the undercurrent of purpose beneath the day-to-day rhythm of Wired Coffee Bar – hasn’t changed, even as the coffee landscape around her has.
From the start, she set out to create a place where people could linger and talk. She still takes satisfaction in walking into the shop and seeing it in motion: members of a Bible study leaning into conversation at the community table, future newlyweds meeting in person for the first time and small business colleagues filling a glass board in a coworking space with handwritten notes – visible proof that ideas are being shared and connections are forming.
That philosophy also shapes how she hopes people will experience their coffee. Goolsby encourages customers to slow down and plan for it rather than rushing through.
“Sit down. Stay awhile. Make coffee an experience,” she says.
Goolsby is also looking ahead. A liquor license is in the works, opening the door to espresso martinis built around the shop’s cold brew – including an Ethiopian cold brew paired with coffee liqueur and a spirit of choice. Evening customers have been asking for beer and wine, so the plan is to ease into later hours on Fridays and Saturdays. Her daughter, newly ServSafe certified, is preparing to step into the role of head bartender.
What stands out is how little Goolsby’s enthusiasm has dimmed. The desire to offer a welcoming place, to give people a reason to slow down and connect, continues to carry her forward. After all these years, that enduring sense of purpose might be what surprises her most.