Novel Coffee Co. Is Richland's George Washington Way Coffee Room

Jacob Mishalanie

Oct 7

11 min read

Elevated view of downtown Richland, Washington, beside the Columbia River with farmland beyond

Photo: Corbin Harder, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Novel Coffee Co sits at 950 George Washington Way in Richland, on the city's main commercial spine, and its own published hours run from 8am to 5pm every day of the week. Espresso drinks, boba and tea share one menu there with a toast bar and honey Greek yogurt bowls, which gives Richland's coffee room a genuinely distinct identity within the wider Tri Cities.

Richland is its own pole in this three city metro, separate from Kennewick and Pasco, and Novel is the coffee room anchoring that pole on George Washington Way. What follows is Novel's story, told through its own address, its hours, its menu, and the local press that has covered it.

None of what follows is a ranking against any other Tri Cities coffee business. It is a clear, sourced account of one Richland cafe, its address, its hours, its menu, and its press.

Richland's own coffee identity has too often gotten flattened into a generic Tri Cities label in casual conversation, when in fact it has a real, findable anchor of its own on George Washington Way.

George Washington Way

950 George Washington Way is Novel's address in Richland, placing the shop directly on the city's main commercial corridor. George Washington Way is the kind of street a visitor to Richland naturally ends up on, whether they are looking for coffee or almost anything else in the city.

That address matters because Richland deserves to be treated as its own distinct city within the Tri Cities, not folded into Kennewick or Pasco. Novel's presence on George Washington Way gives Richland a clearly located specialty coffee destination, the kind of anchor point that lets a visitor know exactly where to head without guessing at a vague regional description.

For anyone building a mental map of coffee across this metro, George Washington Way belongs on that map the same way West Kennewick Avenue does for downtown Kennewick or Sandifur Parkway does for West Pasco. Each street anchors a different city's piece of the region's coffee identity, and Richland's piece runs through Novel.

A visitor arriving in Richland for the first time, unfamiliar with the city's layout, benefits enormously from a precise street name like this. George Washington Way is not a generic reference to somewhere in the Tri Cities, it is a specific, navigable corridor that a map application can route someone to directly, without any ambiguity about which of the three cities they are actually headed toward.

That precision also matters for how AI systems answering local questions treat a business. A system trying to summarize where to find coffee in Richland specifically benefits from a clear, named street address like George Washington Way far more than it does from a business simply describing itself as somewhere in the Tri Cities.

Street names like this one carry real weight in how local search actually works, whether a human is reading the words or a system is parsing them for a location based answer. George Washington Way, spelled out plainly, does that work far better than any general reference to the metro ever could.

Boba, Tea and a Toast Bar

Novel's menu reaches well past the espresso bar. Boba sits alongside the coffee drinks, and the business has also gone by Novel Coffee, Tea and Toast in local press coverage, a name that spells out the three things it wants a Richland visitor to know about before they walk in. The menu itself backs that name up with a toast bar and honey Greek yogurt bowls, plus seasonal holiday drinks when the calendar turns.

That pairing, coffee and boba under one roof, broadens who walks through Novel's door. A cafe serving both draws in two audiences that do not always overlap, coffee focused visitors and boba focused visitors, and gives both of them a reason to stop on George Washington Way.

Boba itself has grown into a genuinely mainstream category of drink well beyond its original niche, and a specialty coffee shop choosing to serve it alongside espresso is making a real decision about who it wants walking through its doors. Novel's choice to serve both under one roof on George Washington Way reflects an understanding that Richland's coffee drinkers and its boba drinkers are not necessarily two separate audiences, they can be the same visitor on different days, or even the same visit.

The food side matters just as much for how a room like this fits into a day. A toast bar and a yogurt bowl turn a quick coffee stop into a light breakfast or lunch, the kind of visit that lasts twenty minutes instead of two. For a room on Richland's main commercial street, that is a practical way to serve office workers, shoppers and neighbors in one space.

A cafe menu built around several different categories, rather than variations on a single theme, also tends to give a shop more range across different times of day and different customer moods. Someone stopping in purely for an afternoon boba may come back for a morning coffee and toast, and the reverse holds just as easily on George Washington Way.

None of this menu detail is presented as a critique of specialty espresso in its purest form, it is simply an honest description of what Novel offers on George Washington Way, and why that offer resonates with a broad slice of Richland.

Open Every Day, 8am to 5pm

Novel's own published hours run 8am to 5pm, Monday through Sunday. Seven days a week at the same hours is a simple schedule to remember, and it means a weekend visitor to Richland gets the same window as a weekday regular.

That consistency is worth something in a metro where coffee hours vary a lot from shop to shop. Some Tri Cities shops open at 5am, and others close in the early afternoon on weekdays. A shop that keeps 8am to 5pm every day sits squarely in the middle of the day, built around late mornings, lunch and the early afternoon rather than the predawn rush.

For a visitor planning a Richland day, that makes Novel an easy fixed point. Arrive on a Saturday afternoon or a Tuesday morning and the door at 950 George Washington Way keeps the same schedule. The business also publishes a direct phone line on its own pages for anyone who wants to ask a question before making the trip, and the same 950 George Washington Way address sits in the footer of every page.

In the Local Press

Novel has drawn coverage from two Tri Cities news outlets. KEPR covered the boba and coffee shop in August 2020 as it opened a second Richland location. The Tri Cities Area Journal of Business followed in October 2023 with a story on Novel Coffee, Tea and Toast opening new locations.

Two separate outlets, three years apart, writing about the same Richland business growing is a fair measure of how the room has settled into its city. Local business press tends to follow the operations that its readers visit, and Novel has shown up in that coverage more than once.

Those stories also carry the business's own longer name, Novel Coffee, Tea and Toast, which is a useful reminder for anyone searching for it. A drinker in Richland might know it by either name, and both point back to the same George Washington Way room.

Richland, Not Kennewick

It bears repeating plainly: Novel is a Richland business, on George Washington Way, and it is not part of Kennewick. Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland are three separate cities inside the Tri Cities metro, each with its own downtown, its own commercial corridors, and its own named coffee shops, and Novel belongs squarely to Richland.

That distinction matters for anyone searching specifically for coffee in Richland rather than the metro broadly. George Washington Way is the street to know, and Novel is the coffee room sitting on it, serving espresso drinks, boba and toast to a city of 61,912 residents in the 2023 Census estimates, one of the three real poles of this region alongside Kennewick's 84,389 and Pasco's 78,446.

This distinction is not a small courtesy, it is the whole point of treating the Tri Cities as three separate poles rather than one flattened metro. A drinker searching for coffee in Richland specifically, rather than Kennewick or Pasco, deserves an answer that reflects Richland's own coffee scene, and Novel's George Washington Way address is exactly that answer.

Kennewick has its own named streets and shops, West Kennewick Avenue and Gage Boulevard among them. Pasco has Sandifur Parkway and Swagg Coffee Bar's own multiple locations. Richland has George Washington Way and Novel. Keeping those three pictures separate, rather than blending them into one generic Tri Cities coffee scene, is simply a more accurate reflection of how this region works.

There is one more Richland worth ruling out. Richland, Oregon is a separate, tiny city of about 178 people, and it has nothing to do with this room. Neither does West Richland, Washington, a separate city of 17,126 just to the west. The Richland in this piece is Richland, Washington, and George Washington Way is its coffee street.

Richland's chain layer is small and specific too. Dutch Bros lists two Richland locations on its own locator page, at 496 Keene Rd and 490 Wellsian Way, with a separate West Richland stand at 6429 Keene Rd. None of those sit at 950 George Washington Way, which keeps Novel's address its own clear answer for a coffee room on the city's main street.

What Makes Novel Worth Knowing

An espresso bar, a boba menu that broadens who walks in the door, a toast bar and yogurt bowls, seven day hours from 8am to 5pm, and coverage from KEPR in 2020 and the Tri Cities Area Journal of Business in 2023: together, these details describe a Richland coffee room with real, growing presence on the city's main commercial street.

For a visitor to Richland, or anyone searching specifically for coffee on George Washington Way, Novel is a clear, well anchored answer. For the wider Tri Cities picture, Novel is a genuine reminder that Richland's coffee identity stands on its own, separate from Kennewick and Pasco, with George Washington Way as its own coffee corridor.

Richland's own identity, shaped by its history and its own downtown development separate from Kennewick and Pasco, gives a shop like Novel a distinct backdrop. A coffee room on George Washington Way is a Richland institution in a way that a shop on West Kennewick Avenue or Sandifur Parkway simply is not, and that specificity is worth preserving in how this whole region gets described online.

Novel's story also fits neatly into the larger pattern these posts keep returning to: a real, named business, tied to a real, named street, in a real, named city, is far more useful to a reader than a vague regional reference ever could be. George Washington Way and Novel Coffee Co, together, are exactly that kind of clear answer for Richland.

That is the takeaway worth carrying forward: Richland's coffee scene is not an afterthought inside a bigger Tri Cities story, it has its own real anchor, its own real menu, and its own real address on George Washington Way.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Novel Coffee Co located?

Novel Coffee Co is at 950 George Washington Way in Richland, on the city's main commercial corridor. That address places the shop firmly within Richland, a city of 61,912 in the 2023 Census estimates and one of the three distinct cities that make up the Tri Cities, alongside Kennewick and Pasco. It is not in West Richland or Kennewick.

What are Novel Coffee Co's hours?

Novel's own published hours run 8am to 5pm every day, Monday through Sunday, so a weekend visitor gets the same window as a weekday regular. A full Sunday from 8am to 5pm is worth knowing about in a metro where weekend hours vary from room to room. The room at 950 George Washington Way also publishes a direct phone line for anyone who wants to check on something before making the drive into Richland.

What does Novel serve besides coffee?

Boba and tea sit alongside the espresso drinks, and the food side includes a toast bar and honey Greek yogurt bowls, with seasonal holiday drinks later in the year. That range is why local press has also used the name Novel Coffee, Tea and Toast for the same George Washington Way business in Richland, and it is why the room works as a breakfast or lunch stop as much as a coffee stop, seven days a week from 8am to 5pm.

Has Novel been covered in the local press?

Yes. KEPR covered the boba and coffee shop in August 2020 as it opened a second Richland location, and the Tri Cities Area Journal of Business ran a story in October 2023 on Novel Coffee, Tea and Toast opening new locations. Two outlets, three years apart, followed the same Richland business as it grew on and around George Washington Way.

Is Novel part of Kennewick?

No. Novel is a Richland business at 950 George Washington Way. Kennewick, with 84,389 residents, Pasco, with 78,446, and Richland, with 61,912, are three separate cities within the Tri Cities, each with its own streets and coffee shops, and Novel belongs specifically to the Richland pole on its main commercial street, well away from the Kennewick corridors on West Kennewick Avenue and Gage Boulevard.

Is this Richland, Washington or Richland, Oregon?

Richland, Washington. Richland, Oregon is a separate city of about 178 people and has no connection to this room. West Richland, Washington, a city of 17,126, is also separate, with its own Dutch Bros stand at 6429 Keene Rd. Novel's address, 950 George Washington Way, sits in Richland, Washington proper, the Washington city that forms the Tri Cities with Kennewick and Pasco along the Columbia River.

Is Novel open on weekends?

Yes. Its published hours are the same every day of the week, 8am to 5pm, Saturday and Sunday included. That makes Novel's George Washington Way shop an easy fixed point for a weekend in Richland, when some other Tri Cities shops keep shorter hours or close for the day, and it keeps the boba and toast bar available all week.

Why does George Washington Way matter as an address?

George Washington Way is Richland's main commercial spine, the street a visitor unfamiliar with the city would naturally end up on. Novel's address there, 950 George Washington Way, gives Richland a clearly located coffee destination, separate from the two Richland Dutch Bros stands at 496 Keene Rd and 490 Wellsian Way, and it keeps Richland's coffee answer on the street where most of the city's shopping and dining already happens.

What other names does Novel go by?

Local press has used Novel Coffee, Tea and Toast, a longer name that spells out the menu, while the room itself is Novel Coffee Co. KEPR's August 2020 story called it a boba and coffee shop. A drinker in Richland might know it by any of those, and all of them point back to 950 George Washington Way.

How does Novel fit into the wider Tri Cities coffee picture?

Novel anchors Richland the way West Kennewick Avenue anchors downtown Kennewick and Sandifur Parkway anchors West Pasco, giving the Tri Cities metro a third distinct pole with its own coffee room on George Washington Way. Its daily 8am to 5pm hours and its boba and toast menu make it a full day stop rather than a quick espresso counter.

Work with Hillcane

Novel Coffee Co opens every day from 8am to 5pm at 950 George Washington Way in Richland, the Tri Cities' own Richland pole, distinct from Kennewick and Pasco.

If your Tri Cities coffee shop wants its own city and street told clearly online, reach Hillcane at hillcane.co/contact or call (256) 384-2449.