Business Description
After a combined 20 years in the coffee industry, my wife Renee and I opened our own coffee roastery and tasting room in the heart of downtown Rochester, New York. We started the business in 2013 with a single wholesale client and a 500 square foot bar seating coffee bar. We quickly realized our love for the quality of coffee and the love of genuine community were shared by thousands around the greater Rochester area, and matched by visitors from around the world. It’s been a humbling process, starting and running our own business, but we feel it is time to seek additional capital to take our business to the next level. We operate as a wholesale coffee roastery as well as a cafe, serving high quality coffee bought from coffee brokers and direct from farmers at origin all over the world. We currently have 7 employees that work in our cafe. In the future, and with the help of a Kiva loan, we hope to expand into new markets and employ more people locally in Rochester. We are proud to play a part in the city of Rochester and the ways in which it is seeing upward growth and revitalization. We are committed not only to to Rochester, but to serving the best coffee we possibly can day in and day out.
What is the purpose of this loan?
A Kiva loan will help us renovate our current space on Euclid Street with additional and more efficient seating options to accommodate peak times and facilitate community at the shop. Additionally we are seeking to keep a larger inventory of un-roasted green coffee beans at our roastery to provide consistency as well as increased variety to our customers. Finally we are seeking funds to build a mobile coffee cart for the local farmers markets in Rochester as well as catering events. We have allocated $3,000 for both the improved seating at the shop and the mobile coffee cart respectively. We plan to spend the additional $4,000 to stock un-roasted green coffee beans.