Lisa and Billy Truelove are set to open a fifth location for their Palace Coffee and Bakery in downtown Springfield. The new site at Fourth and A streets will feature a public cafe and visible coffee roasting operations. The opening is targeted for late 2026 or early 2027.
Lisa Truelove, a 52-year-old entrepreneur from Eugene, Oregon, began her career in coffee inspired by her teenage years at her parents' bakery, The Muffin Mill. A conversation with a delivery driver for Boyd’s Coffee introduced her to the profession of coffee roasting, where she learned that a head roaster had his palate insured for a million dollars. This sparked her interest in a career centered on tasting and quality assessment of coffee.
After college in Texas, Truelove returned to Oregon and frequented Full City Coffee Roasters on Pearl Street in Eugene. In 1999, she joined the staff under owner Michael Phinney, learning roasting techniques and visiting farms in Peru. When Phinney retired in 2020, Truelove acquired the business. Full City had previously merged with the adjacent Palace Bakery, but Truelove revitalized the bakery side, rebranding it as Palace Coffee and Bakery. The bakery now thrives with items like iced pumpkin cookies, pastries, muffins, scones, cannolis, breakfast sandwiches, burritos, and Thanksgiving pies.
In 2021, an employee's gift of coffee beans from El Salvador led Truelove, her husband Billy, and their son to visit farms there. They developed a house blend described as “very smooth” with notes of chocolate and dark raisin. “I’ve never been tired of it,” Truelove said.
The Trueloves began renting the 8,000-square-foot building at 150 Fourth St. in Springfield in 2022 for roasting with a “seafoam green” San Franciscan roaster. They purchased it in 2024. The renovated space, kitty-corner from The Public House, will serve as a coffee-centric hub with a cafe, commercial kitchen, and storage for all locations. Current sites include the University of Oregon Jaqua Academic Center, Slocum Center for Orthopedics & Sports Medicine, and PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend.
“We’re happy to be part of changing the face of Springfield,” Billy Truelove told Lookout Eugene-Springfield. “In Eugene, we were continuing something that began there,” Lisa Truelove added. “We can do whatever we want here.” A foam rendering of Homer Simpson holding a Palace mug, gifted by local artist Rodger Deevers, adorns the building's windows.