OLYMPIA, Wash. — On one of the busiest corners in Olympia, you'll find coffee brewing, cider pouring and, inside food trucks, chefs cooking up cuisine from distant countries.
“It's really pretty amazing,” said Carissa Dickson. “I get pretty emotional, actually.”
Emotional because Dickson said this is exactly the way her mother wanted the corner to be.
“She just loved this place so much and she had a really beautiful vision for it, to be a great place for community together."
Cyndi Dickson owned Filling Station Espresso for twenty years. She worked out of one of the state’s first drive-thru stands. As the name suggests, it was once a gas station.
It was Cyndi’s idea to turn the rest of the property into an international food court.
“She was a visionary,” said Lisa David.
Cyndi recruited Lisa and her brother to park their Ninevah food truck there, where they've been serving up slow-roasted shawarma for years.
“I really like being part of this little mini business community,” David said.
Next door, Marianne Socorro and her husband serve up South American street food from their truck Arepa. They were also recruited by Cyndi.
“Everybody is so warm and so welcome to us and we are from another country,” Socorro said. "We've been here for eight years and it's wonderful."
"Yeah this corner is amazing," said Heather Ringwood who sells Whitewood Cider out of her picturesque Teeny Tiny Taproom.
"You're always seeing somebody you know when you're here so it's an awesome place to stop and reconnect with your friends."
It was a friend who took over the lease and the legacy when Cyndi died of cancer in January of 2015, the sister and brother she recruited first.
"I think it's really important to us that Cindy's daughter can walk around and know that this place has been taken care of and that her mother's mission is being upheld and seen through," David said.
Now when Cyndi's daughter visits she gets more than a hot cup of coffee. She gets a very warm feeling inside.
"She's here, you know? I still feel her, feel her here."
Filling Station Espresso is open seven days a week. It is located on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Plum Street. On Sundays, David and her brother fry up fresh donuts for their coffee stand customers.
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