It’s a long way from her days as a real-life Rosie the Riveter, but for nearly 15 years, Grace Hanson has been managing the small coffee shop at the Renton Senior Center.

“I enjoy it,” Hanson said this week from behind a counter piled with goodies. “I think it’s the people. The people are very friendly, very nice.”

Hanson’s journey from Bismark, N.D., to barista in Renton has been a busy one, and Senior Center director Shawn Daley said Hanson has helped change the back room of the center from a little-used spot, even on busy days, to one that is often packed with people.

“That room used to be a rarely-used room. We had a jigsaw puzzle in it,” Daly said.

But that changed several years ago with the opening of the Center’s small coffee bar, and Hanson has been a major part of that transformation.

“People love her, that’s the bottom line,” Daly said. “She just brings love to the building.”

Hanson started her coffee career on a lark. She was just sitting at one of the center’s tables one day about 15 years ago when the gentleman who ran the counter before her asked if she could fill in while he went to a doctor’s appointment.

“I didn’t know anything about it,” she said, but never one to be scared of new things, Hanson waded in by herself and figured it all out.

Soon after, the man behind the counter began asking her to cover more and more often and before she knew it, the counter was hers to run.

Along with coffee, the little shop also serves some goodies, usually donated from Panera Bread or Starbucks, an addition that Hanson said made a big difference because the coffee alone was a little “boring.” In fact, she said that when Panera offered, she just said “yes” without going to the higher-ups at the center.

“That went over really well,” Hanson said.

Hearing her story, however, it is not surprising that Hanson knows a thing or two about selling. Her husband, Art, was a professional salesman and the couple used to own a shop in Wyoming and in North Dakota.

Hanson’s tale began in Bismark, North Dakota, where she worked at the state captial. It was a desk job and she hated it, telling her mother at the time that was either going to have to start smoking or start drinking in order to deal with all the sitting around.

Soon after, her brother, who had moved to Western Washington, invited her out and Hanson jumped at the chance, though there was not a whole lot of work at the time.

“I ended up tagging Christmas trees,” she said with a laugh.

Hanson went back to the Dakotas and found another job, but said she didn’t even work there a year because a friend had moved to Seattle and told her about possible work with Boeing.

“So, back to my brother again,” she said.

For more than two years during World War II, Hanson worked as a riveter, just like the iconic symbol of 1940s feminism, Rosie.

After the war, Hanson again returned home to North Dakota and took a job at Montgomery Ward, where she met Art, a salesman. The couple fell in love, got married and she quit her job.

Soon after, Art was transferred to Montana and then later to Casper City, Wyo.

In Casper, the couple decided to open their own business, so Art quit his job and the pair opened their own shop. But soon after, they packed up and moved back to North Dakota again, where they also ran their own store.

When news came out that a highway was planned through their town, an investor showed up and the couple sold off the store and the inventory and moved back to the Seattle area. It was 1989.

Somewhere around the year 2000, the couple found their way to the Renton Senior Activity Center and began coming regularly. Unfortunately, Art fell ill in the early part of this century and died in December 2005.

Since then, Hanson has thrown her energy into the coffee shop. In the beginning, Daly worried he was using Hanson too much, but she wanted more responsibility and these days, she’s even at the center before he is to begin making the coffee and getting the goodies prepped.

“Gracie is one-in-a-million,” he said. “She just sort of takes charge down there.”

Daly said the center’s coffee shop, thanks in part to Hanson, has been a great success and provides a place for seniors, especially the men, to just gather and shoot the breeze.

“And if we don’t have that smiling face and those welcoming people, they’re going to leave,” he said.