A self-described serial entrepreneur, Ryan Vet ’13 and business partner Phil Smith see their latest venture, The Oak House, as an opportunity to foster an intellectual climate in downtown Elon.
From boyhood, Ryan Vet ’13 has been creating and implementing new businesses. Whether it’s lemonade stands or neighborhood newspapers, he’s given it a shot. As a freshman at Elon, he even began a coffee company out of his dorm room, complete with Facebook page and menu.
It all led up to his biggest venture to date: opening The Oak House in downtown Elon last fall. “I’m a serial entrepreneur,” Vet says. “Starting new ventures is a part of my DNA.”
The business sprung from a chance meeting at an Elon basketball game, when Vet ran into Phil Smith, former assistant chaplain at Elon, during halftime.
They had known each other while Vet was an undergraduate business student and took the opportunity to catch up on the other’s life. The conversation continued at Pandora’s Pies, where Smith laid out his plan for what would become The Oak House—one that played directly into Vet’s entrepreneurial spirit. “We quickly realized that our visions were aligned for a place that fostered an intellectual climate in the Elon community,” Vet says. “We ran into one another again in Asheville several weeks later. It was there the final pieces fell into place to make the dream of The Oak House transform into a reality.”
The Oak House is located on North Williamson Avenue across from the School of Communications, and offers gourmet coffees, craft beer and artisan pastries and snacks. The location gives Smith and Vet the chance to cater not just to students but also to the community at large, which Vet says was a goal from the beginning. “It is so fun to see students and staff, alumni and families, prospective students and the surrounding community come under one roof and have a place to just talk, laugh, study and relax,” Vet says. “We have had tremendous support from everyone.”
Vet had always wanted to open a coffee shop and The Oak House has given him the opportunity to fulfill that vision in a place that is important to him. “We get to create an environment right downtown that will add to the Elon community and allow others to feel like they belong,” he says, adding that he hopes it will build the sort of connections, friendships and relationships that last a lifetime.
His partnership with Smith is an example of those connections and what he calls “the epitome of the Elon experience.”
“We had the unique opportunity to carry on [our] friendship past graduation day and transform it into a successful business in the heart of downtown Elon,” he says.
For more information on the business, visit elonoakhouse.com.