A Puyallup coffee stand known for its perpetual first-responder discount has planted its second flag in downtown Eatonville, opening a drive-thru and sit-down café on Friday at 209 Center St. E. Rescue Me Coffee owner Brionna Sipple has run the original Puyallup location at 1303 E. Main St. for more than a decade, and the Eatonville shop marks the brand's first expansion beyond that single stand.
The new café serves the same menu as the Puyallup original, according to The News Tribune, but Sipple has made the Eatonville lineup more breakfast-forward, adding items like biscuits and gravy, ham and swiss sandwiches on ciabatta, and sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches on English muffins. The shop also sells cake pops, muffin tops and pumpkin bread. Some of the breakfast sandwiches get a boost from a local partner: Rescue Me Coffee works with Pierce County food brand Stinky Dip, which launched at the Puyallup Farmers Market in 2023, to serve its signature garlic spread.
Unlike a typical drive-thru-only stand, the Eatonville location has an indoor coffee counter with seating for up to 10 people, opening daily at 7 a.m. The full shop, including the drive-thru, runs from 4:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends. Sipple took over Rescue Me Coffee in 2020 and credits her employees for the stand's success, telling The News Tribune that her team can make coffee a career.
A Menu Built Around First Responders
Rescue Me Coffee's identity centers on supporting emergency personnel, and the Eatonville shop carries that mission over with a permanent 20% discount for first responders and a display of donated first-responder memorabilia, including firefighter jackets and police and firefighter patches. The theme extends to the drink menu itself: 911 is a coffee mixed with caramel, banana, brown sugar, cinnamon and white coffee, Sound the Alarm is a hazelnut vanilla latte, and Rescue Me is a caramel white mocha. The shop has also rotated in specials like a dirty Diet Coke with coconut and lime, and a Ghirardelli dark chocolate coffee topped with pomegranate cheesecake cold foam.
That focus on emergency workers fits into a broader push across the region. Pierce County government leads Washington State in outfitting municipal fleet vehicles with 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline emblems, part of an effort to promote mental health resources for veterans, emergency workers and residents, according to Pierce County. Both the discount and the memorabilia wall give Rescue Me Coffee's Eatonville location a visible tie to that county-wide emphasis on first-responder support.
Building On a Century-Old Storefront
The building housing the new café has its own history. Real estate records reviewed by Redfin show the 1,172-square-foot structure at 209 Center St. E. was built in 1920 and previously operated as a local dental office before its conversion into a coffee shop. It sits just down the street from Mill Haus Cider Co., which opened a community taproom at 303 Center St. E. in 2021 celebrating Eatonville's historic sawmill roots, according to ShowCase Magazine. Together, the two businesses reflect ongoing investment along Eatonville's main commercial corridor.
Eatonville, incorporated in 1909, has an estimated population of around 2,850 residents and sits roughly 20 miles from the entrance to Mount Rainier National Park along the Road to Rainier Scenic Byway, per the Nisqually Land Trust. That positions the town as a gateway stop for commuters, outdoor enthusiasts and tourists heading into the Upper Nisqually Valley, giving a drive-thru and sit-down café real traffic potential beyond the local customer base.
Part of a Wider East Pierce County Trend
Rescue Me Coffee's move into a full café format echoes a pattern showing up elsewhere in East Pierce County. In February, Puyallup-based drive-thru operator Rainier Valley Coffee Co. announced plans for its first sit-down café in downtown Puyallup, part of a broader shift among local coffee stands toward hybrid models with indoor seating and expanded breakfast menus. Drive-thru espresso stands themselves trace back to the Pacific Northwest's early 1990s coffee boom, when small-footprint kiosks became a fixture of Washington commuter culture.
The Eatonville shop's coffee comes from Sumner-based Dillanos Coffee Roasters, which started in 1992 as a single espresso cart in Buckley before growing into a wholesale roasting operation serving more than 1,500 retail clients. Dillanos expanded further last year, acquiring the West Coast operations of Dancing Goats Coffee in January 2025 and reviving the legacy Batdorf & Bronson brand at its 126,000-square-foot Sumner facility, according to Daily Coffee News.
Sipple isn't stopping at two locations. She plans to open more Rescue Me Coffee shops around Washington and eventually wants to expand the brand into other states, the same team's ambitions signaling that Eatonville may be an early stop rather than the finish line for a company that has spent more than a decade building its name in Puyallup.
