What was the initial community response to the cafe opening, and how does the community view it today?

Unfortunately we did not have the support of the local alderman when we applied for a city grant, and he made it difficult for us to access those funds, so in turn we went to our community and the online community for support. Our goal was to raise $10,000 and we ended up raising $17,000. We received contributions from all over the country and in different amounts but the majority of the funds came from within the community and in the form of $5 and $10 contributions. What that showed us was that there was a need in the community and that they supported us, but we just didn't know to what extent. When we opened our doors, we had a line out the door all the way past the parking lot and into the alley. We had to close the line at 3 pm because we were running out of supplies that we had bought for the entire week. Today, at any given time you will find students, professionals, mothers, children families, both from around the block or from the other end of the city, to visitors from out of town. We've found that people want to give back and be part of something, they know that by supporting our business they are helping fund programming in Back of the Yards and helping employ young people from the community. It feels good to be part of something that is bigger than us.

Where do you source your coffee from? What kind of impact has that had for the people involved?

We source our coffee from all over the coffee belt, from Honduras to Brazil and all the way to Ethiopia, but our biggest accomplishment when it comes to sourcing is our relationship with farmers in the highlands of Chiapas. As we were having our initial conversations and practicing on our cold brew, a woman we knew for 7 years casually mentioned to us that her family are coffee farmers in Chiapas and asked [us] to make the introduction. She took us out there and we met the family, amazing hard working people and decided we would try to figure out how to work with them. That journey led us to learn about the coffee process and route and through our partnership with our exporter, we will help them innovate their farms to make them more sustainable and profitable to them, while also maintaining the quality. Our goal is to get them from producing only 3 sacks per hectare to 40-60 bags within 3 years.