Sister business: Sonder Montana Co offers a place for local women’s work to shine

Carly Reedy and Amy Herman grew up working in the Echo Lake Cafe outside of Bigfork, a local staple that their family has owned and operated for over 20 years. Now, the sisters have come back to their roots and started their own venture next door: Sonder Montana Co, a coffee shop and retail store that seeks to highlight and uplift local women.  

The duo started working at Echo Lake Cafe when they were 14 under the guidance of parents Bob and Christi Young.  

“We thought we knew it all back then, this has been a very humbling experience but in the best way,” Carly said.  

After the sisters graduated college, the family was split. Amy and her husband Mark Herman moved to California to manage the Youngs’ first restaurant, Fire Sign Cafe. Carly joined the corporate world and worked in retail in California and Texas. They realized they wanted to be back home in Montana, together. 

The idea for Sonder came in 2017 and the behind-the-scenes work; Pinterest boards and product searching, started.  

Amy and Mark purchased Echo Lake Cafe from their parents in 2019 and started their family.  

“I always joke, like, I had to create a whole human for [Carly] to come home,” Amy said.  

Sonder was designed to be a sister business for Echo Lake Cafe, a place to grab a coffee and peruse local makers’ wares while waiting for a table at the restaurant’s peak hours.  

“We just wanted to have a space that not only celebrates women and tries to help moms kind of have a moment to themselves, but also support women-owned businesses, which is definitely our main goal always,” Amy said.  

The shop, directly next to Echo Lake Cafe off Highway 83, has a bright airy feel with fragrant coffee and a homey sitting area. A mini kitchen sits in the corner for the littles to play in while their parents get a drink or talk and there are plenty of places for new friends to meet or old friends to gab. 

The Echo Lake Cafe organic blend made by Cravens Coffee is the same as it has always been. However, Sonder has its own specialty drinks with local ingredients, the star being honey from Great Northern Honey Co.  

The retail side of things holds a sort of new Montana aesthetic; there’s stylish clothes for everyone, jewelry, art and more made by local women. Carly arranges fresh-cut flowers from local growers with her and husband Matt Reedy’s young daughter each night so they’re ready for purchase the next day. It’s homegrown and modern at the same time, giving makers a place to shine. Everything is as local as possible and low-tox. Business cards for the people who fill out the shelves are available on the front counter to make sure they are in the spotlight.  

“We put so much thought and effort into every product that we bring in that it feels like a disservice to just put ‘baby body wash’ or ‘tallow’ on the shelf and not tell that it’s grass-fed and finished from Kalispell, we went to high school with the people, she grows her own dandelions... we’re not a shop where you’re just coming in and grabbing stuff off the shelf,” Carly said.  

Sonder officially opened June 10 of this year, but it has been years of work in the making. The Sonder Montana Co logo reads, “Estd. 2017.” 

“We’ve put too much blood sweat and tears into this for far too many years to have to say, ‘Established in 2024,’” Carly laughed.  

The night before they opened, Amy was hauling in boxes of merchandise for Carly to arrange, a skill Carly had practiced in the corporate world her entire adult life. Amy returned from a trip to find Carly crying.  

“We were both super stressed out, we’d run out of money, and I thought she’d broke something,” Amy remembered. “But she was just like, ‘I have never merchandised my own stuff, I’ve always had to do it for other people...’ For me, to have helped her bring that dream to fruition was really cool.” 

For Carly, it’s all about making sure local people have a chance at that same feeling. 

Sonder’s retail products sold out within the first two weeks they were open. In the back of the store, the sisters have started a box of “love notes,” handwritten thank-yous from makers that now have a platform.  

“Knowing that it wasn’t just money going to some person that’s importing things from China and that we were literally reordering from families and putting money directly back into women-owned businesses, for me, it was the highlight,” Carly said.  

Sonder is open seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday through Sunday. Their website is available at www.sondermontana.com.  

“It sounds so cheesy, but I feel like Sonder is so much more than a coffee shop and a retail store. We just want to be part of the community that helped raise us,” Carly said.