Keeping North County Buzzing
Most people around Healdsburg know Marne Dupere as the woman behind Plank Coffee, a cozy coffee shop with great organic food just west of Big John’s Market on the north end of town (and another location in downtown Cloverdale.)
But Plank is just the latest in a series of adventures that revolve around the things Dupere loves.
Before Dupere even thought about opening a coffee shop, she and her husband Mike Morisette owned a fancy furniture shop in Los Angeles. Dupere doubled as a visual merchandizer, Morisette an advertising executive. They worked long hours. Then, one day, they had had enough. They wanted something more. So they bought an Airstream and set out to find it.
The third stop on their journey, of course, was Healdsburg, and they fell in love with the town’s mix of small-town charm and big-time sensibility. They returned to move here full-time in 2007.
“It was definitely one of these love-at-first-sight sort of things where we were like, ‘This is the place!’” she remembered recently. “Once we made the decision to stay, of course, we looked at each other and were like, ‘Now what do we do?’”
Dupere and Morisette opened another furniture store—this time right on the Healdsburg Plaza. The store was named 14 Feet, and it has since closed and moved to Cloverdale. Dupere and Morisette moved to Cloverdale, too, back in 2009, and they noticed that there weren’t any good coffee shops up there. So they opened one and called it Plank. Locals came in droves—especially for the unparalleled selection of gluten-free goodies.
That was in 2012; Dupere and Morisette opened the Healdsburg Plank just before the pandemic. Today the duo roasts their own coffee. They also sell wholesale coffee to accounts around the region.
The bespectacled Dupere is no stranger to the ins and outs of the food service industry; she grew up on the Gulf Hill Dairy Farm in South Yarmouth, Massachusetts, home to the oldest ice cream shop in the Commonwealth.
She credits this early experience as fueling her entrepreneurial spirit.
“I feel empowered by the fact that I have met so many strong women in my life,” she said. “I learned at an early age from everyone in my family: If you own your own business, you need to be resilient.”
Looking forward, Dupere said she and Morisette believe resilience includes expansion, and have considered opening another Plank elsewhere in Healdsburg or possibly Windsor. Wherever they open next, they want to maintain the same minimalist design aesthetic, the same commitment to good food, and the same perspective that coffee is the great equalizer.
“Coffee brings people together,” Dupere said. “There’s nothing more special than that.”
