After facing several hurdles to open a full location in Washington Court House, the owners of Orion Coffee and Tea have decided to close up shop locally — leaving regular customers asking questions as to where they went.

Eric and Sharayah Irwin, a couple from Xenia, are the owners of Orion. The Washington Court House location was the third location to be opened.

Sharayah explained via email, “unfortunately, we decided we needed to close the Orion in WCH. The trailer was making significantly less than we hoped — we were losing money there every month between payroll and rent. Traffic just never picked up like we hoped, especially once we were out of the mid-winter months, and we expected to see an increase.”

Essentially and as previously reported, the building Orion was going to be located in was on South Elm Street across from Washington High School and Middle School. Constant setbacks were experienced throughout the COVID pandemic, especially as construction was taking longer than usual.

Although the building was taking longer than desired and expected, it was decided to have a trailer open in the parking lot of the building early last year. Baristas who already worked for the business and live locally were in charge of the trailer and serving customers.

“When we considered how many thousands of dollars it was going to take to finish the building (especially with equipment and construction costs going up by as much as 50%), and how many times busier we’d need to be each day just to break even and begin recouping our investment, we decided it was the wiser decision not to continue there. It makes us so sad, because we had some wonderful regular customers there, and had a beautiful vision for the building. But it doesn’t seem like it was meant to be,” wrote Sharayah.

Where will the Orion drive-thru trailer be located now? It will not be coming back to Washington Court House. Orion has a location in Cedarville, a drive-thru in Jamestown and a Roastery in Springfield.

“We are working on opening the trailer as a drive-thru at our Coffee Roastery in Springfield. Our landlord there has generously offered to let us park and run it for free,” wrote Sharayah.

Reach journalist Jennifer Woods at 740-313-0355.