After career-ending injury, this Penn State grad opened a State College coffee shop
When her Penn State track and field career ended unexpectedly, Zoe Duffus would not have imagined she would have her own business in the State College area less than two years later.
Duffus opened her own coffee shop, Eden Valley Coffee Co., at 165 Elmwood St. on Monday. Despite the successful launch, the recent Penn State graduate hardly had any experience working in a coffee shop until an injury derailed her athletic aspirations.
“I competitively ran for just about my whole life, and that took up most of my time. For a long time, I wanted to do that professionally,” said Duffus, who medically retired as a junior due to a fractured sacrum. “Despite that phase of my life ending, I was excited to finally have a job because running 40 or 50 miles a week and traveling across the country was like a full-time job since I was 12.
“I felt like I could finally be a barista and see if owning a shop was something I could achieve.”
Eden Valley Coffee Co. serves blends of Rothrock Coffee with a unique primary roast that has notes of pecans and maple flavors, Duffus said. The menu features traditional coffees alongside cold brews, signature lattes, matcha and more. The shop also serves pastries from Pleasant Gap’s The Cakeshop by Tati and cinnamon rolls from Kathryn’s, a State College shop specializing in frozen homemade meals and baked goods.
Duffus’ coffee shop, located between Happy Valley Brewing Co. and Maine Bay & Berry, offers plenty of indoor seating options and natural light. She said she worked hard to find the right furniture and decorations to craft an inviting space.
She signed her lease for the space just a few weeks before starting her senior year at Penn State in August 2024. Outside of her studies, she spent that final year planning for her shop before graduating with a photojournalism degree in May.
“Curating a vibe when people walk in, that’s really important,” Duffus said. “I want to make people want to stay. Every chair, every table, every piece of decor is here after a lot of thinking and planning, and I’m really happy with how it all turned out.”
Duffus worked as a Vibe Coffee Co. barista following her retirement and quickly grew to love making drinks and interacting with customers. She compared meeting new people each day and striking up conversations to traveling the world — something she’d always wanted to do.
Duffus’ mother, a nurse practitioner who owns a clinic back home in Indiana, was a key figure behind the push to open a coffee shop in State College.
“When I started to share this dream, she was listening to me,” Duffus said. “I later thought, ‘If she thinks I can do it, and I have someone who believes in me and is willing to invest in it, I’ll go at it with everything I’ve got.’”
Duffus said Eden Valley Coffee Co. serves as an extension of her faith, which she credits for helping to keep her in State College in the first place. She said the area felt like home only after she started attending Cedar Heights Church and engaging in more community events.
“I found a community there like nothing I’d experienced before, and it helped me fall in love with State College,” Duffus said. “I feel like I now have family here I’m closer to than nearly anyone else. I think the Lord called me to stay here, and I think Pennsylvania is just gorgeous.”
The shop’s name, Eden Valley, is a play on both the biblical Garden of Eden and Happy Valley. Duffus said she took inspiration for her shop from several sources, including readings encouraging people to “bring heaven onto earth” by developing welcoming spaces for all.
For now, Duffus is focused on getting her shop up and running and falling into a groove to keep the operation humming along. She joked that big things are on the way if the shop sells enough coffee, including tentative plans in 2026 to overhaul the shop’s back deck and open it up for outdoor seating.
“Expect great coffee, better people and a really peaceful, cozy place to dwell in and relax,” Duffus said. “If you want a little oasis away from all the hustle, bustle and business of life in State College, this should be for you.”
Eden Valley Coffee Co. is open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays. Guests are permitted to park in the shop’s dedicated spots, Maine Bay & Berry spots before 9:30 a.m. or down the hill in Voodoo Brewing Company’s spots.
This story was originally published July 31, 2025 at 3:13 PM.
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