{"id":1231,"date":"2018-09-18T05:00:40","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T15:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/2018\/09\/18\/bostons-ripple-cafe-is-expanding-with-your-help\/"},"modified":"2018-10-01T01:00:16","modified_gmt":"2018-10-01T11:00:16","slug":"bostons-ripple-cafe-is-expanding-with-your-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/2018\/09\/18\/bostons-ripple-cafe-is-expanding-with-your-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston\u2019s Ripple Cafe Is Expanding (With Your Help)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Business is booming in Boston\u2019s coffee culture. Three of the most prominent American specialty coffee companies\u2014Counter Culture, Blue Bottle, and Intelligentsia\u2014have set up shop there, with a burgeoning micro-roaster community of its own. In the historically Black neighborhood of Dorchester, Massachusetts, just south of downtown Boston, a coffee scene is growing on its own. Enter Ripple Cafe, a Black-owned coffee pop-up that opened last summer in the dining room of <\/span>Taste of Eden<\/span><\/a>, a Jamaican restaurant in Codman Square on the corner of Withington and Norfolk. After a successful first year, Ripple Cafe is moving into a permanent cafe space less than a mile from the pop-up, and they\u2019re looking to the community for help funding renovations.<\/span><\/p>\n

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According to their <\/span>Gofundme campaign<\/span><\/a>, Ripple Cafe is slated to begin renovations immediately and hope to open by October 1st of 2018. Along with continuing to offer Counter Culture coffee, juices, and pastries, the cafe\u2019s stated goals include creating a sustainable living for their baristas through liveable wages, investing back into the community through non-profit work, and providing first-time jobs for local youth. Owners Gaelle Ducheine and James Guerrier spelled it out on the cafe\u2019s Gofundme page:<\/span><\/p>\n

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We have dreamed of owning this sort of cafe for years, but we knew the implications of debt financing in such a start-up situation would create financial pressure on the business. We wanted to start small and experience an organic growth, as this would mitigate risk and give us time to learn the ins and outs of the business. We built a coffee cart in the summer of 2017 and set up in spare dining room space inside a Jamaican restaurant in Dorchester\u2019s Codman Square as a pop-up enterprise. We sold specialty coffee, tea, smoothies, and locally sourced pastries for a year, building great relationships with customers and making great friends along the way. We self-financed the entire operation and continued to do so until the pop-up was able to sustain itself. It took a lot of hard work, but it was sweet to see it flourishing on its own and to gain a glimpse of that organic growth and effect we had been longing for.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We are proud of our initial success as young entrepreneurs, owners of one of a very small handful of Black Owned Independent Coffee Shop\u2019s in the city of Boston.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We\u2019re living in a time <\/span>where folks<\/span><\/a> in <\/span>marginalized communities<\/span><\/a> are rallying hard to<\/span><\/a> support each other<\/span><\/a>, and we\u2019ve been fortunate to see this same work taking place in coffee spaces. Groups like <\/span>Boston Intersectional Coffee Collective<\/span><\/a> (founded by Intelligentsia Post Office Square lead barista, Kristina Jackson) remind us our support for minority coffee folks\u2014especially Black coffee folks\u2014is not only important, but necessary. Fundraisers like the one underway in Dorchester offer another opportunity to extend support to minority-owned businesses dedicated to reinvesting into the communities they come from. It\u2019s a ripple effect of positivity and growth that will reach far and wide to better the world of coffee, for drinkers and business owners alike.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can support Ripple Cafe\u2019s campaign on <\/span>Gofundme<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>follow them on Instagram<\/span><\/a> to stay updated on their progress.<\/span><\/p>\n

Michelle Johnson is a news contributor at Sprudge Media Network, and the founder and publisher of The Chocolate Barista<\/a>. Read more Michelle Johnson on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Photos via Ripple Cafe.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Boston\u2019s Ripple Cafe Is Expanding (With Your Help)<\/a> appeared first on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Source: Coffee News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Business is booming in Boston\u2019s coffee culture. Three of the most prominent American specialty coffee companies\u2014Counter Culture, Blue Bottle, and Intelligentsia\u2014have set up shop there, with a burgeoning micro-roaster community…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,41],"tags":[63,45,65,47,61,49,59,55,57],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1282,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions\/1282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}