Carabello Coffee at a crossroads.
Carabello Coffee stands at a crossroads. Since January we have been sharing the roaster of Mike Persicano of The Coffee Underground. However, Mike is shutting his business down at the end of June, which directly affects our future.
We have one of two choices:
Buy Mike's roaster and continue operating Carabello Coffee.
Shut things down and ride off into the caffeinated sunset.
As many of you know, we began Carabello Coffee as a way for us to increase our ability to give to the Kingdom of God. Our heart from the beginning has been to allow the Lord to move this forward in His time and in His way, knowing that it is for the benefit of His kingdom. We are teachers at Miami Valley Christian Academy. The Lord put us there and we have no intention of leaving what we are doing there. Our hope has been that Carabello Coffee would someday stand on its own as a non-profit, allowing us to continue teaching, while giving more than we ever could on our teacher salaries.
The past two weeks, as we have prayed and sought the Lord, we believe He is moving us to buy Mike's roaster and continue developing Carabello Coffee. We have been very open to Him asking us to lay it down, but we have not heard Him speaking those words to our hearts or through any of our circumstances.
In order to take this next step we need two things.
$9000 to Buy Mike's Primo 5-Kilo Roaster. The roaster is 7 years old and has a life expectancy of 30+ years if take care of properly, which it has been up until now. New, this roaster sells for $14K. They hold their value well over time, so, this is a fair price.
A Place to House the Roaster. Roasting coffee requires that we house the roaster in a place that either already meets the FDA requirements for food preparation or can be set up to meet those needs - mostly that has to do with having a 3-bay sink and then a separate sink for employees to wash their hands. We are open to sharing a space with an existing business (I already talked to the owner of Mammoth Coffee which is a cafe here in Newport) or just putting it in some back alley warehouse or garage type building (which is the type of building it presently resides in). The roaster needs to be vented properly, but this should not be a problem.
Presently we are asking the Lord for wisdom and are working through meeting these two needs. Perhaps He wants to use some of you to help lead us to the right funding or location, and that is why we are writing you. We have full faith that the Lord is going to provide these two things if He wants Carabello Coffee to continue operating.
If you have any thoughts to share, please do! If the Lord is touching your heart to help us, please contact us. If you have some ideas you think we should consider, we're all ears!
You are the people who believe in what God is doing through Carabello Coffee, and we trust that you will stand with us as we wait on our God to move.