Lamp & Post Honors Its Roots While Casting a New Light on Coffee and Community
By: Jeremy Angione | Photos by: Ashlee Glen
After just under 20 years of serving coffee to Lynchburg residents, The White Hart Cafe closed in December 2025. Determined to keep the spirit and mission of The White Hart alive, owner Myke Barron immediately set himself the task of reviving the Lynchburg staple with necessary updates and a new name.
Barron, an East Texas native, and his family went on a self-proclaimed faith journey through Tennessee, Guatemala, and New Zealand only to be nudged toward Lynchburg after it presented itself in too many circumstances for Barron to believe it to be coincidence.
Barron took ownership of The White Hart in 2020.
Despite closing in 2025, Barron says that it was also the best financial year the cafe experienced during his tenure. However, irreconcilable differences between himself and his former business partner would ultimately lead to The White Hart’s closure.
“We survived a pandemic and two rounds of Main Street construction, but we couldn’t survive a partnership,” Barron said lightheartedly.
Although Barron considered it difficult to close such a beloved Lynchburg locale, he conceptualized a new brand that would honor the legacy of The White Hart.
Lamp & Post is Barron’s new coffee venture that is building back the momentum that its predecessor once had in the community.
“This is a continuation. The name was sort of a nod initially,” Barron said.
The white stag, a prominent symbol in The Chronicles of Narnia, was the initial inspiration for Ed Hopkins, who originally founded The White Hart Cafe in 2008.
Another symbol in the book series was a lamppost that acted as a waypoint to a portal between the world of Narnia and the real world.
“The vision for Lamp & Post became so prominent and continued to present itself,” Barron noted.
According to Barron, the idea of connecting worlds and cultures was aligned with his most closely valued ideals of “development and sustainable growth in communities.”
Although he’d considered simply naming the cafe “Lamppost,” Barron says that there would have been copyright conflicts with another cafe he knew of in Texas. He added that he believes that a lamp and a post, items that are often in conjunction with one another, also hold their own unique values to communities who relied on them in the past. The naming scheme reflects his views on the people in his community as being “individually significant, but so much better together.”
“Initially, the plan was to turn it right back around, open in March and go. It’s been the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve raised four boys,” Barron said.
A major part of the difficulty that Barron faced was the rebrand to Lamp & Post. He wanted to make sure the transition from The White Hart to Lamp & Post was seamless and tasteful.
“I didn’t want to erase White Hart. One of the most nerve-wracking things I’ve done is switch the socials over to the new branding,” he stated.
The current plan, according to Barron, is to open Lamp & Post in the original White Hart location at 1208 Main Street before the end of the year. To establish Lamp & Post as The White Hart’s spiritual successor in the minds of old regulars and new customers, Barron has been serving coffee pop-up style at several events.
The pop-ups first presented as an opportunity when Fox Burrow Books asked Barron to provide coffee for a book fair event. The book fair was ostensibly Lamp & Post’s official branding debut after weeks of cryptic social media hype for the unveiling of The White Hart’s new iteration.
Barron says that these “Post-Ups” have been successful.
“From my perspective, it’s been overwhelmingly and encouragingly positive,” Barron said.
For Lamp & Post, connecting and community extend beyond Lynchburg. The coffee sourced for Lamp & Post is a direct trade product from Guatemala, where Barron has established close personal ties with friends and farmers. Chica Bean is a women-owned and operated roastery and cafe that employs local Guatemalan women and teaches them coffee as a trade.
Barron says that he hopes to expand trade beyond just Guatemala once all the cafe’s processes are ironed out.
The most pressing process is renovating the historic but aging space that once held The White Hart. Recruiting investors and working within the bounds of a restrictive lease have made the process take longer than expected.
“We’re doing things in that space that are going to maximize revenue. It’s going to create more collaborative opportunities while maximizing customer and retail space,” Barron stated.
Lamp & Post will also feature a bookstore, an homage to Inklings Bookshop—another former Ed Hopkins-helmed business that was adjacent to The White Hart.
Barron says that these renovations and new features will create an “updated flow and aesthetic.”
“The hope is for the space to run more efficiently so that it can eventually host community events, such as open mic nights and coffee competitions,” he added.
Ultimately, Barron—as the “hopeless optimist” he describes himself as—is confident that Lamp & Post can be a third space for residents and visitors of downtown Lynchburg that picks up right where The White Hart left off.
“It’s not the next chapter in the book; it’s the next book in the series,” Barron mused.
For more information about Lamp & Post, visit thelampandpost.com or follow its Instagram page, @thelampandpost.
