A former bank building on a prominent Fulton corner where Route 481 intersects with Oneida Street has become a coffee shop, community center
by Tim Nekritz | nekritz@gmail.com
A longtime friendship, an internet outage and seeing a market need all added up to the creation of the cafe and community center known as the 114 Reserve in Fulton.
Owners Mikaela Tubolino and Kayla Kimball started as close friends when they were 12, attending Red Creek Central Schools together. While they weren’t as tight after graduation, with Kimball raising a family and Tubolino pursuing other endeavors, their lives intertwined to start the business a few years later thanks to a series of events.
“In November of 2022, I had a tree go down at my house and so I didn’t have internet, I didn’t have power,” said Tubolino, who was working from home at the time. While her power returned, her internet was out for two more weeks.
“In the meantime, I wasn’t home, so I had to figure out a place to go and, as I was looking around, I just noticed there was nowhere, really, to just go and sit and work,” Tubolino said.
That adversity uncovered a market need, so “I wondered what it would take to just start my own coffee shop, because this is a need for this area,” Tubolino said. “So I looked up buildings, and this is the first building that popped up.”
The location at 114 Oneida St. (hence the name) was a former bank building — among other businesses — on a prominent corner where Route 481 intersects with Oneida for one of two bridges across the Oswego River in Fulton.
“Funny enough, years ago, when this was a bar, I only ever came in one time and I walked in, looked up with a chandelier and I immediately said, ‘This should be a coffee shop,’” she recalled. “And then I just left and I didn’t do anything.”
Until a few years later. And it took reconnecting with a longtime best friend to make the dream come true. As she mulled the business over, Tubolino happened to be driving past Kimball’s house, which led to a quick text exchange.
After asking each other how they were doing, Tubolino told Kimball, “I think I’m going to buy that building.”
Tubolino recalled Kimball’s response being: “I want to help you with this.”
“So we sat down the next day,” said Tubolino, who brought a binder that was about four inches thick with notes and thoughts.
“We just chatted about what it could look like and what our vision was and what we really came up with was that Fulton just needed a community space that is not centered on alcohol, that’s not centered only around music or only around a certain kind of population,” Tubolino said.
“We have other spaces in this area, that are really great, especially for meeting and gathering, but when it’s connected to other things, sometimes it feels not quite as welcoming, where that’s really what we wanted or something that just felt welcoming and felt like we were adding to the community,” Tubolino noted. “Being women, we really wanted the space that was open for women to be seen. And that really has been a big part of our business. It’s just really lifting up local people, local business owners.”
Creating community
Interviewing Tubolino on a Sunday morning, the coffee shop is thriving with a mix of people, all of whom seem to make the space their own. Customers enjoy a wide variety of drinks and baked goods and friendly barista service.
As if to underscore the welcoming vibe, two first-time visitors that morning are singer-songwriter Khalil Jade, who performed an opening set at the Oswego Music Hall the previous night, and partner Caleb Confer. Making their trip back home about three hours south and not finding other places of interest open Sunday morning, they learned of this place and said they were very glad to make the visit.
That sentiment is common as Tubolino and Kimball have seen their vision come to life. Around the time they were starting, people approached them, noting the existing stage and asking if they were planning to have live music and performances. All in good time and Tubolino noted that, as seems to happen, things just worked out at their own pace.
Their first attempt at a live music and mocktails event was running into challenges, so Tubolino contacted somebody who was unable to do it, who suggested another person, with the process repeating until they finally landed with the right partnership.
“So we ended up getting this really amazing person for our very first one and she killed it, knocked out of the park,” Tubolino said. Building a network and being patient “is really kind of how I’ve just sort of allowed things to come in, who can I connect with and how can I connect with that?”
The 114 Reserve shares a parking lot with the Art Scene at CNY Arts Center and former barista Sarah Galvin helped establish that relationship and shared ideas that might work in the space.
“She is just very well connected,” Tubolino said of Galvin. “She just knows so many different types of people. And something that she really left with me is don’t be afraid to just put it out there because there’s so many people that want to fill that need. And so that’s kind of really how we connect with people is we’ll say, ‘OK, well, we want to do this. How can we get this to happen?’”
This has led to collaborations including Late Night Latte events with readings of short plays and a variety of acts, bringing performances that wouldn’t necessarily happen or reach people otherwise into a well-trafficked space.
“They happen on our stage and usually there’s limited props, but the writers are local and they do a really great job with bringing in people that either haven’t been to the cafe before or our cafe customers who have never been to the CNY Arts Center,” Tubolino said.
The 114 Reserve also has begun hosting Sip and Learn events, similar to small-scale TED talks where speakers share their knowledge, expertise or passions with others. Additionally, the space has hosted some art shows, including an American Heart Association fundraiser and also showcasing art programs from the Fulton YMCA.
Other events have included continuing Sip and Shops, with live entertainment and a variety of local vendors and Silent Reading Nights, where people can do their own thing but still feel a sense of connection.
Musical hub
One of the emerging aspects of the shop is an avenue for Oswego County’s thriving — often under the radar — music scene.
The 114 Reserve is a family-friendly laid-back venue that began hosting open mics every few months, providing an alternative to all the bar-hosted events, especially for those who don’t necessarily have other spaces to showcase their talents locally.
They have also hosted concerts for the likes of local singer-songwriter Kenny Roffo, CNY teen rising star Abby Solves and Oswego County trio Very Next Accident. In this space, performers can reach new audiences while continuing to hone their craft.
For an originals-oriented act like Very Next Accident, 114 Reserve is a perfect space, as band member Antonia D’Amato describes it as an “amazingly cozy spot that offers drinks, snacks, fun and music.”
“I love it there, the warmth and atmosphere are as serene as the place itself,” D’Amato said. “I love the haven Mikaela has created here.”
As a female musician in what is often a male-heavy scene, D’Amato loves seeing a worthy women-run business thrive.
“The 114 is home to Sip and Shops, open mics, readers’ nights, special performer nights, to name a few,” D’Amato said. “This well-run business with a dose of panache is not one to be missed.”
For Roffo, doing a two-hour set in the cozy confines of the coffee shop provided a rare opportunity for his young children to see a performance.
“Performing my music is one of my great passions that I love to share,” Roffo said. “For a while I’d wanted to play a show for my friends and family but had no place to do it. Then I met the wonderful folks at the 114 Reserve at one of their open mic nights. They were friendly and inviting, as they offered to let me put on a show.”
For Roffo, who started writing songs a couple years ago and finishes about one a month, it allowed him to showcase many originals, including one named “The 114 Reserve.”
“I was able to share every song I’ve written with a special group of people, making for a truly special memory,” he said. “I am beyond thankful and I proved it by writing them their very own song!”
Future focus
Looking forward, Tubolino said they have discussed a second permanent location, but not immediately and not until the time is right. For now, the focus is on continuing to provide quality coffee — including roasting their own — baked goods, customer service and a sense of community.
As for events, Tubolino sees the music and shows continuing, with new ideas for events taking shape.
“We will be hosting a Not-So-Silent Reading night, which will be great,” Tubolino said. “It’s really more of a time where if you just want to come and just hang out and it’s OK if there’s some noise, you can craft or you can read or whatever.”
As a self-described introvert collaborating with an extrovert like Kimball, Tubolino understands that people value community in whatever form it might take.
“What we did realize is that even though we both are on the extreme ends of those things, as humans, we just always need connection,” Tubolino said. “We always need to be around people and our community really needs this space to help foster that. And that’s what we are really looking forward to in the next few months is just creating this ability for people to come together and it doesn’t need to have a specific theme all the time.”
Those connections with people and the community have made the effort worth it.
“We try to keep as many things as we can local, including our coffee and baked goods,” Tubolino said. “Every time we have vendors here, all of those things are all local people. And that has been something that Kayla and I, throughout our friendship, have always cherished, too, as we’ve always been really big on supporting as many local things as we can. I would say that’s kind of the history of our friendship and how we came to the cafe.”
Tim Nekritz is director of communications at SUNY Oswego, where he spearheads telling the stories of the campus community.
