26-year-old Kyle Tabor is a force to be reckoned with in the central Arkansas coffee scene.

Arkansas Money & Politics (AMP), our sister publication, started off its new series on Arkansas entrepreneurs with Tabor, the owner and founder of Blue Sail Coffee.

Kyle Tabor

The 26-year-old’s coffee company includes a downtown Little Rock location, two Conway shops and a roastery, which is also located in Conway. After graduating from one of Conway’s three colleges, he opened Blue Sail’s first location in the city’s downtown.

Tabor aims to use coffee as a vehicle to bring people together. The consumption of coffee is a means to an end.

“Coffee is just a way to bring [people] there, but my actual goal is to bring them there,” he told AMP. “Coffee is the how to my why. Why is people, how is coffee.”

Tabor helped build the coffee community in Conway, and his business has maintained it alongside other shops like Zeteo Coffee and Round Mountain Coffee. In Little Rock, Zeteo and Blue Sail opened their downtown locations around the same time. Nexus Coffee and Creative opened shortly afterward.

Are there more Blue Sail locations in the future? Tabor told AMP that was a possibility, but that his hands are full with the current operation.

“Right now the plan is to settle in and optimize the three stores that I have and maybe one day I’ll open another store,” he says.

Click here to read the full story from AMP.