We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Angie Hudson, Tamara Lapsley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Angie Hudson, Tamara Lapsley below.
Angie, Tamara, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?
Esteamed Coffee is a 501©3 in Cary, NC whose mission is to lower the 70+ percent unemployment rate for individuals with communication, intellectual/developmental, and/or visual impairments in our local community! We have been open since December 17, 2020 and were founded by 2 friends, Angie Hudson and Tamara Lapsley, both with their own unique backgrounds that brought them to this dream.
Angie has been legally blind since college, over 30 years now. She understands what it’s like to live with a disability daily and to struggle to find meaningful employment. Angie has a passion for providing others with various disabilities a respected, public place in our local community. As a Co-Founder with a disability, Angie wanted to turn her personal challenges inside out and create purpose for her own life and the lives of others while also making her hometown of Cary, NC a more inclusive community!
Tamara is a Speech-Language Pathologist with over 30 years of experience in working with individuals with communication, learning, and intellectual/developmental disabilities. She has seen the impact of these disabilities on an individual’s opportunity to find meaningful employment once they graduate from high school. Tamara has incorporated her SLP skills into creating a supportive, accommodating environment in which staff members with communication deficits can thrive and feel completely at home!
Angie and Tamara, close friends for over 25 years, visited a similar coffee shop in 2017, and were inspired by their mission. However, they wanted to not only employ individuals with disabilities but also work on goals for each of them (the “Life Participation Approach” to therapy) to maximize their staff’s social interaction success and vocational skills.
By mid-2017, Tamara and Angie had combined their ideas and formed a business partnership with the dream of someday opening a non-profit, people first, coffee shop in Cary, NC. After 3,5 years of hard work, Esteamed Coffee opened its doors to the public in the middle of the pandemic! The Co-Founders say they couldn’t be more excited to celebrate Esteamed Coffee’s 2nd Birthday this month!
Angie Hudson, Tamara Lapsley, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Neither Tamara nor Angie has a business degree or ever been entrepreneurs, so opening Esteamed Coffee was a huge leap of faith for both of them as they knew nothing about nonprofits, coffee, merchandising, finance, advertising, etc.! They did, however, see a huge need in their area for more employment/workforce development opportunities for individuals with communication, intellectual/developmental, and/or visual impairments and had the faith that they could tap into local resources to figure out how to begin and carry out this endeavor. “We were very fortunate to have the local Small Business Center nearby that provided free classes and counseling on all the paperwork needed to start a nonprofit as well as a startup business. Through networking with the Small Business Center and other local nonprofits, we were fortunate to develop an initial Board of Directors made up of 3 other wonderful community leaders who helped us in this process of launching a nonprofit coffee shop. We were also fortunate to find a wonderful local coffee roaster and meet with a local rep from Torani – a California based coffee syrup company – to provide our coffee syrup needs. Torani has also come alongside us by donating some products and funds to our nonprofit through their Cafe Opportunity fund,” said Tamara. “We are truly grateful for the variety of support from different sources we have received along this whole journey,” added Angie.
“After almost 2 years of taking classes and raising the $300,000 needed to start renovations and open our coffee shop, we began renovations of a 1940s cottage in Downtown Cary, NC in June of 2020. Three months later in September (without ever formally advertising the job openings other than on social media), our team hired and trained 18 employees with varying disabilities in November, 2020, and opened our doors to the public on December 17, 2020 – all in the middle of a pandemic!” Angie explained. “And, since opening 2 years ago, our managers have cross-trained all of our employees on different aspects of running the coffee shop! We have also launched 3 additional programs: Local Artists with Dsabilities (where every quarter we showcase and sell the artwork of local artists with disabilities and they receive the majority of the sales proceeds); our Volunteer program where we have paired volunteers with disabilities with a typically developing adult volunteer to carry out front of the house tasks; and most recently, our Special Events program where our managers schedule 1-2 events/month to provide a social outlet for adults with disabilities,” added Tamara.
Esteamed Coffee is different from other local coffee shops due to its mission and to the variety of programs it offers in addition to serving excellent specialty coffee. This does mean they continue to rely on donations to meet financial obligations. However, their Finance team meets regularly to help fine tune this process and eventually lessen reliance on donations/become more profitable by offering new revenue streams.
“Since Esteamed Coffee is primarily a Workforce Development opportunity, we CELEBRATE when our employees move on to other challenging/more financially rewarding job opportunities!” said Tamara. “Esteamed has already had 5 employees move on to other jobs in our community, but Esteamed Coffee is a long term fit for some of our staff and we’re excited for them to stay with us,” added Angie.
“Families of loved ones with disabilities ask us all the time if we have any job or volunteer openings, but we we rarely have an opening because our staff is so happy at work! We know our area could support several more businesses that employ a dozen or more adults with disabilities, so we hope to inspire others to recognize the value of individuals with disabilities in the workforce. They make very dependable, reliable employees,” explained Tamara. “One of the things we are most proud of with Esteamed Coffee is the dignity, joy and pride this job opportunity has given our employees and volunteers. They love coming to work and interacting with the public. Our customers also rave about the warm and welcoming environment that has been created at Esteamed Coffee created by our friendly employees and management staff!” Angie added.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
It was a long 2 year journey. After hosting multiple information/fundraising sessions in people’s homes; speaking to all the local rotary clubs and lions clubs; hosting a large fundraiser event in September, 2019; and organizing a 400 mile bike ride fundraiser by their board member Kirby Barbour, they had raised $150,00 of their $300,000 capital goal to sign a space lease. It looked like fundraising could take another 2 years and both co-founders were feeling weary. Then a major blessing occurred. Angie and Tamara attended a lecture at NC State on employing individuals with disabilities and ran into the current President of LC Industries. Twenty-five years prior to this encounter, Angie had been given her first job by the former President of LC Industries, Bill Hudson. When talking with the new President at the NC State event, he suggested that Angie reconnect with Bill, who had retired, and let him know about the mission of Esteamed Coffee. After not talking with Bill for over 25 years, Angie emailed Bill with her and Tamara’s dream idea. The last week of December, 2019, Bill Hudson had received her email and called Angie out of the blue to ask for a presentation deck and business plan proposal he could present to the Board of his foundation. One week after the foundation BOD met, Bill called Angie again to say that the foundation had approved the proposal to fund the remaining money needed to meet the total $300,000 goal! Angie and Tamara were thrilled, and, with his support, fundraising was complete the last week of February 2020.
Over the next few weeks, the world shut down as the pandemic spread and it became clearer that opening a new business was going to take a lot more than funds, it was going to take a new level of grit and determination. Tamara and Angie had a big decision: do we move forward and sign a lease, hire an architect, and spend a lot of funds we’ve raised to convert a 1940 cottage in a prime location into a coffee shop? Or, do we not take a huge risk with what our donors have entrusted us with? Well, they decided to GO FOR IT, and though it was hard, Esteamed Coffee is thriving, and celebrating it’s 2 year anniversary in December 2022! A huge thanks to Bill Hudson, who took a chance on Angie at age 24, as an employee and gave her her first job after college, even though she was legally blind, and then Bill took a chance again 25 years later, when he donated the majority of the funding needed for Esteamed Coffee! We are forever grateful to all the people who believed in us when there was no proof that we would turn this dream into a reality, especially Bill Hudson. Dreams really can come true!
If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?
Esteamed Coffee’s main revenue stream is sales from the walk in, brick and mortar coffee shop, where we sell specialty coffee drinks, Nitro cold brew, smoothies, tea, and locally sourced artisan pastries. We also sell branded Esteamed Coffee merchandise such as cups, mugs, t shirts and bags of coffee. But part of our business plan from the start was to maximize impact in the lives of adults with differing abilities by leveraging all of our small space.
We maximize impact in several ways. First, we have local art made by adults with differing abilities on consignment all over our shop. We rotate 3 to 6 artists per quarter, giving the most artists possible a chance to consign with us. It is so much fun to see customers buy art in the form of jewelry, paintings, photography, note cards, stickers, ornaments, t shirts, and more, and the artists receive the majority of the sale proceeds and the remainder goes to Esteamed Coffee’s operational budget.
We also have a new revenue stream in a Special Events Program. Once or twice a month, we host events in the coffee shop when we are closed to the public which are specifically designed for adults with disabilities. By charging a small fee and selling drinks and pastries during the private events, we make money for our operating budget.
Someday, we hope to create new job opportunities and a new revenue stream for adults with disabilities by creating an online store, offering packaging and shipping work that can be done when the coffee shop is closed to the public.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.esteamedcoffee.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/esteamedcoffee/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/esteamedcoffee
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/esteamed-coffee-inc/?viewAsMember=true
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyNR_hfUj8qF-j5argCVIiA
Image Credits
Katie Barnette Photography and Amanda Bowman Photography