Short Summary

We use simple, time-honored techniques to produce everything we serve.  By roasting coffee in small batches and serving it fresh; by baking everything in house from scratch with simple honest ingredients; by hand-crafting every single cup of coffee; and by creating job opportunities for people with unrecognized potential, Living Room will provide a unique new coffee shop experience in Maplewood.

• Arthouse Coffees has been roasting small batches of single origin coffee for 5 years in the back room of an art studio.  What started as a hobby became a way to support a really awesome job for a person with disabilities and became a fully-fledged little wholesale business.  Living Room will be the new headquarters for Arthouse Coffees, and will feature freshly roasted coffee from Arthouse as well as a rustic, simple, seasonal variety of baked foods.  You may have tried some of our limited offerings at farmers markets over the past couple years.  We want to offer you more while also providing more lasting and meaningful employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
• This campaign will allow our company to finally step from the shadows of a storage room into the light by opening up a coffee shop where hand-crafted coffees can be served alongside foods freshly baked in-house.  If able to fully fund our project, we will be able to open with a full menu of satisfying coffee drinks and rustic baked foods. 
• Arthouse Coffees has been in Maplewood since its founding.  We are thrilled to be serving to folks in our favorite neighborhood!  All in a building which is part of Maplewood's rich history--the old Black Cat Theater on Sutton Blvd.

What We Need & What You Get

• We are seeking $15,000 to complete our start-up purchases.  We still need things like an espresso machine, flooring for the kitchen, and materials to build a simple and stylish brew bar plus all the little things that make a coffee shop tick: mugs, cups, spoons, knives, plates, saucers, linens.
• If you've met us an any of our St. Louis area farmers markets (Schlafly, Webster Groves, Wildwood, Clayton), then you've probably tasted some of our offerings from freshly roasted coffee, unique compound butters and spreads, rustic baguettes and rolls to our velvety smooth Bitt's Cold Press.  These are the things you will be rewarded with for supporting Living Room!  Our perks are all fantastic values that we are genuinely proud to offer.
  
• In the event that we don't reach our entire goal, our first priority is to purchase an espresso machine.  We have our sights set on the beautiful La Marzocco Linea PB, which will showcase our espresso robustly and with consistency.  

The Impact

Risks & Challenges

We haven't hired a special marketing agency to help us build momentum for this campaign and we don't have a star-studded reputation to propel us to success.  We haven't canceled our farmers market engagements.  This is a daunting challenge, especially so close to our prospective opening date of November 1.  We realize this and welcome and even feed off the intensity.

Our passion for bringing the freshest and best hand crafted coffee and food drives us to do difficult (even crazy) things!  This campaign will be won on sweat, determination, creativity, our ability to cobble together a motley crew of supporters, AND the quality of our coffees and foods.  Even if you can't throw down financially, pass the word along to anyone you think might be interested in a bottle of velvety smooth Bitt's Concentrate or a year's worth of baguettes. 

There are simple sharing tools on this page that make it easy to share our campaign with others.  Let them know you are cooler because you knew about it first!