Bo Nelson

Josiah “Bo” Nelson is a Kansas City native and a co-founder of Thou Mayest Coffee Roasters, the Crossroads coffee company he started in 2012 with Bill Holzhueter around the idea that communities grow through connection and conversation over a good drink.

Biography

A Kansas City native, Bo Nelson grew up working in his family’s nursery business (Family Tree Nursery), where he developed an early hands-on sensibility.¹ In 2012 he co-founded Thou Mayest Coffee Roasters with fellow roaster Bill Holzhueter, starting in a garage and taking the name from a passage in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden that turns on the freedom — and responsibility — of choice; the company glosses it as “the way is open.”¹²

Thou Mayest grew from a garage roasting operation into a respected Kansas City roaster and café, opening a Crossroads retail space in 2014.² In April 2019 the company acquired Quay Coffee — with its two locations in the River Market and at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art — and announced a new Crossroads concept, Thee Outpost, a 2,000-square-foot shop inside the Collective EX artisan collaborative at 519 E. 18th Street, after closing its previous flagship.³ Nelson has been recognized among the people shaping Kansas City’s food-and-drink scene.¹

Legacy

Nelson is among the entrepreneurs who built Kansas City’s modern coffee culture, pairing careful roasting with a deliberate emphasis on community and craft.

See also

• thou-mayest-river-quay

Sources

Citation replaced 2026-09-08. This page previously cited “One On One: Bo Nelson, Co-Founder and Roaster, Thou Mayest Coffee Roasters,” Feast Magazine, for the 2012 founding, the co-founder and the East of Eden name. That URL returns HTTP 429 (Lee Enterprises rate-limiting) and has no Internet Archive capture, so it cannot be shipped under the Iron Rule. Flatland KC and VoyageKC carry the same facts and are cited in its place. The flagship address previously given as 419 E. 18th Street was removed: the only address confirmable in a resolvable source is 519 E. 18th St., the Collective EX building housing Thee Outpost, which Startland describes as opening after the previous flagship closed.

Footnotes

1. “Profile: Bo Nelson of Thou Mayest,” Flatland KC — Josiah “Bo” Nelson, a native Kansas Citian who grew up working at his family’s business, Family Tree Nursery; the East of Eden origin of the company name; Nelson on doing what you are passionate about. ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. “Exploring Life & Business with Bo Nelson of Thou Mayest Coffee Roasters,” VoyageKC — “it started in a garage in 2012”; “Thou Mayest means ‘the way is open’ and is inspired by John Steinbeck’s novel, East of Eden”; small-batch sourcing and roasting; the 2014 Crossroads retail space. ↩ ↩²

3. Tommy Felts, “Thou Mayest acquires Quay Coffee; three new locations to stretch footprint from River Market to Crossroads to Nelson-Atkins,” Startland News, April 29, 2019 — Thou Mayest now operating Quay Coffee and its two locations (River Market and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art); “Thee Outpost,” a 2,000-square-foot shop inside Collective EX at 519 E. 18th St., following the closure of the previous Thou Mayest flagship. ↩