Meet Stephy

If you were to ask my younger self, "what do you think you'll get up when you get older?", I don't think this would've been on the bingo card.

I got into hospitality with my first job at seventeen in Cottage Grove, MN. I worked at Yo-Joe's coffee and frozen yogurt shop (which sadly isn't around anymore.) That's where I was first exposed to the world of coffee.

After moving to Nashville, TN at eighteen to pursue music, I worked at a few different cafe's around town to get by. Eventually, I got to help open a small cafe off of West End in one of the medical buildings. I ended up with a chronic pain that coffee, sadly, affected in a negative way so I had to give the stuff up, and that's when I got into tea.

Tea became a ritual and safe haven during my healing journey. It became a place I could come to almost like meditation, especially within the style of gongfu brewing. With all my experience working in cafe's, I knew eventually I'd wanna do something for myself and have my own business. That was always something that felt important to me.

We're just at the beginning now of this Running Wild journey and I don't know what it's going to look like in 5-10 years to be completely frank. All I know is what I want people to feel when they come across anything Running Wild related - to feel free and to feel seen.

I feel like especially in Nashville as an ever growing city, sometimes it's easy to feel lost in the hustle and maybe sometimes when you walk into a space and you might not feel like you belong. And as someone who has felt like a fish out of water a lot of her life, there's nothing I want more than for you to come up to the bar, share a cup of tea with us, and share your story.