From a recent Yelp review:
I pictured a kind of run down coffee shop in a bad neighborhood…But for a good cause. Boy was I surprised! This place is super nice, comfortable, clean…Seriously, one of the nicest coffee shops I have visited.
I can’t say that this is the first time we have heard this, “What? Wow!” response.
Purple Door Coffee (PDC) is Dry Bones and Belay Enterprise‘s longtime dream fulfilled (read more). Customers are finding hope, community, excellent espresso, and royal treatment. Employees of Purple Door are gaining much of the same, along with job skills, self-confidence, and dramatic life-change. I could not possibly be more proud of my four friends who work there.
PDC has now been open for just over two months. The reaction to seeing the space by new customers is almost always the same, “This is so much nicer than the picture I had in my mind!”
Aren’t non-profits that serve the poor supposed to be kind of dumpy; filled with donations of left-overs and couches that “had bed bugs, but we sprayed it before we brought it down”? It’s true. We are all doing the best we can with what we have. We sure do count all of our blessings. (But honestly, where do these expectations and images of non-profits come from?)
When we dreamed of a coffee shop where community and life-building would take place, we dreamed of nothing less than royalty. We dreamed of a shop that would demonstrate pride among the community and would rival any other business of the same type. We dreamed of self-sustaining profit margins and creating a sanctuary in the middle of the city. Most of all, we dreamed of continuing to spread the contagion of Unsurpassable Worth among all who would walk through its doors. (By the way, we hope that some of these values are expressed in everything that Dry Bones is about; not just at PDC.)
Madison Chandler and Mark Smesrud, the managers of PDC, have designed and launched a beautiful cafe. It’s a place where you sense, “I belong.” Their espresso menu is as fancy and elite any you’ve ever seen, but they won’t make you feel dumb if you don’t speak “Coffeese.” It’s an impressive place.
We’re proud of you, Mark and Madison. We’re proud of you too, Mike and Guyia.
If you haven’t become a customer yet, drop by 2962 Welton St. next time you’re in town. The shop sits on the corner of 30th and Welton near the Five Points and Curtis Park districts. I promise that you will leave PDC feeling better about the world, more hopeful for the day, with a smile in your heart, and a great caffeine buzz from the most delicious coffee you’ve ever tasted (or tea, or spicy chai, or bacon cheddar turnover, or…).
I hope you get to wait in a line!
