The Coffee Capp in Windham is now under new ownership and a new name: Leighann’s Lattes.
Earlier this summer, former owner Kathleen Locke sold the business to longtime customer, and local educator, Chuck Lomonte.
However, Locke continues to own and operate her three other Coffee Capp locations in Portland, Standish and on the Naples causeway.
“I just have so much going right now and I knew it would be going into good hands,” Locke said of the sale.
Fourteen years ago, Locke, who lives in Gray, began her quick-fix specialty coffee chain with the small coffee stand and drive-thru in North Windham on Route 302. This was the first “drive-thru” coffee stand in Maine, she said, before corporate chains like Dunkin Donuts and Tim Hortons became fixtures throughout the state.
As regular customers of the coffee stand, Lomonte and his wife Kari, who live in Windham, had asked Locke time and time again if she wanted to sell the business. So when Locke began to think seriously about selling, she called Lomonte first.
“I always loved the place,” Lomonte said. “I always told her that if she wanted to let it go, to call me.”
In addition to taking over the Coffee Capp in North Windham, Lomonte recently retired as principal of Lake Region Middle School and is beginning a new job as principal at Biddeford Middle School this fall.
The menu remains much the same except for a few new specialty drinks at the new Leighann’s Lattes, named after Lomonte’s teenaged daughter.
The coffee shop continues to serve the signature “Coffee Capp” (espresso, coffee flavor and frothed cream) and Lomonte has added a drink of his own creation, the “Leighann’s Latte,” a latte made with a double shot of espresso, syrup flavor of the customer’s choice and “a touch of marshmallow.”
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