New downtown Columbia coffee shop seeks ‘perfect blend’ of taste and good purpose
There’s always room for another coffee shop downtown, and Columbia’s newest is hoping to make room for men and women going through personal transformation who hope to enter or reenter the workforce.
Oliver Gospel Mission, a 132-year-old homeless shelter and recovery program in downtown Columbia, is opening the Oliver Gospel Roastery as a way to expand income for the mission and to help provide workforce training for men and women recovering from addiction and homelessness.
“We want this to be available for everyone to come and enjoy and, really, for people to realize they get to come here and drink coffee and do good,” said Lance Cooper, Oliver Gospel’s director of public relations and also the driving force behind the Roastery. “Just by ordering a cup of coffee, they’re supporting and helping those in need.”
The Oliver Gospel Roastery will roast and brew its own specialty coffees — with raw beans imported from Central America, South America, Africa and Asia — and serve them up in a stylishly industrial and spacious cafe featuring exposed brick walls, plush seating and a room that can be reserved for private functions.
The Roastery also plans to sell bags of coffee, which include its signature “1888” blend — named for the year of Oliver Gospel’s founding and featuring tasting notes of chocolate, toffee and sweet fruit — and the “Toby’s Place” blend, named for Oliver Gospel’s women’s and children’s program.
Some Oliver Gospel and Toby’s Place clients will work at the coffee shop, learning skills from roasting to hosting to food and beverage service, which should help give them a boost when they are ready to enter the workforce, Cooper said.
Cooper, who’s spearheading the Roastery, has been a home roaster for years and is now channeling his personal passion into a larger purpose.
Just like coffee changes, Cooper said, people do, too.
During the coffee roasting process, the first crack is the moment a bean begins to take on the aroma and flavors it’ll present when brewed and consumed. The bean has to crack before it can be fully transformed.
Travis McNeal, executive director of Oliver Gospel, can’t help but draw the parallel between the coffee bean’s transformation and Oliver Gospel’s ultimate mission to transform the lives of men and women who’ve reached their lowest points.
“When someone’s homeless and in the lowest part of their life, giving them something they can learn and work in and have a sense of accomplishment, that’s pretty cool,” McNeal said. “No one’s ever (entered) into their life and said, ‘Hey, you can do something. You can take the next step.’”
Profits from the Roastery will go back into Oliver Gospel’s programs, McNeal said.
The business is largely modeled off of a similar venture by Redwood Gospel Mission in California.
The Roastery is aiming for a soft opening next week and hopes to fully open the first week of November. It is located in the 1100 block of Taylor Street, between Oliver Gospel Mission and the Columbia Conservatory of Dance, roughly across the street from Mast General Store.
This story was originally published October 20, 2020 at 9:48 AM.
