BUILDING A CAFE + WORKSHOP
Throughout the time that Foxtrot has been around, coffee has held its place tightly as an important and integral part of what keeps us going. This bean has found itself wound deep into the culture of our business, with many meetings and get togethers crowded around a pour over carafe and kettle. I love how it’s regarded around the world, how it gets people together, and simply how it keeps us moving and creating. Somehow, I knew that coffee might come to play a bigger role in Foxtrot - it would only take some time to figure it out.
In 2015, just as Foxtrot was getting off the ground, I reached out to Zach Tarhini, owner and operator of Meta Coffee Roasting Co. Zach roasts his coffees on a 1Kg roaster in the basement of his home, and has done so diligently over the years, all the while holding a full time job, being a dad and husband. He visits coffee farms and gets to know the coffees he takes in, carefully selecting and presenting for the brand he has built. At the time, Zach was just starting up his roasting business, and I sent him an email letting him know that I had a recent coffee from him that I really enjoyed, and that I would love to meet him. We eventually met at Second Best Coffee, in Waldo, Kansas City and chatted about our respective businesses and how we might be able to work together, with the dream of possibly putting our brands together in a single retail space, offering our work together. We left each other that day having formed a quick friendship and an idea that never left our minds.
Over the next several years, Zach and I filled up each others’ inboxes with random Craigslist listings for potential retail spaces where we dreamed of combination workshop / cafes. Though a handful became real possibilities, the reality is that nothing ever panned out - that is, until now.
In November of last year, I was presented with an opportunity to lease a building with storefront space in my own neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas, a block from my own home. This building had it all, good space, good bones, history, you name it. Having just undergone some changes in my own company, I wasn’t sure I would be able to take the entire space that it offered. That’s when I knew it was time to call up Zach and let him know I had another opportunity, and once he had taken a good look at the space, at the neighborhood, and the composition of how the shop would be put together, he was in, and our collective idea finally was able to put down roots.
Today, we are within weeks of showing off the work we have put into this space - within weeks of finally seeing our dream actually happen. Our space will house our collective passions, mine for making and curating well made things, and Zach for providing coffee that binds together community through a well-crafted drink. My hope is that the people who will eventually wander through our door will be given an inviting look into those passions, and that if the opportunity arises, and the question of how it all came to be pops up, Zach or I would spring at the opportunity to tell the story again.