We recently connected with Max Freeman and have shared our conversation below.

Max , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

I was burned out from going to med school and dropped out, For all my life I’ve always played it safe, had a plan, and basically did what was the norm until I stopped and asked “what the f*ck am I doing”.

So I dropped out of college, traveled around the east coast on greyhounds and picked up odd jobs, surfing on friends couches, living in sh*tty studios.

I moved back to grand rapids and after working a barista job for $8 a hour with the responsibilities of a owner between payroll/ inventory, helping with opening a second location, social media, basically everything. I said f*ck it, quit and started selling coffee at the fulton street farmers market in 2019.

That exploded and i was popular enough to afford a coffee bike and just kept killing it. We sold out nearly every market and even hired someone at $15 a hour which I was proud of, I was exploited as a worker and I promised to end the cycle.

Opened the store last Dec, we opened a food pantry, a public banned book lending library, a pay it forward cup, and became a space for the lgbtq and gr community with a focus on people first.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

We’re a lgbtq+ Banned Book library cafe/ dry bar with a focus on community. We wanted to do more than just hang up a flag and call it a day. We started the banned book lending library as a response to the bs in texas. It’s completely free and open to the public.

We also started a food pantry that’s been getting decent use/ is filled up nearly every week.

We created the space as a alternative sober space for the lgbtq community in Grand rapids that was open for nights as well.

We give a working class discount for teachers, students, medical, libraries, retail, food service, unions, non profits, basically any profession trying to do good/ professions that are exploited and deal with bs.

The library itself is what I’m most proud of, 99% of the books are donated and it’s been a huge resource/ talking point in Michigan. There are books about being queer, on coming out & loving yourself, on acceptance and understanding lgbtq friends and family that have helped so many folks. We’ve established a community and space where folks can be themselves without fear. Its a space for all walks of life to come as you are.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Outreach and community, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the community we created. There was a want for a queer spot that wasn’t a bar and we built on that. We focused on becoming a spot that was trying to do some real good and was worth coming to.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

The cold hard reality is that most food service places go under very quickly. I’ll be completely honest but the reason why we’re still here and actuality turning a profit vs break even within our first few months of being in bussiness is because we established a brand, played our cards right and got lucky.

Between my mom’s dementia payments and everything else I had a 3rd shift factor job to help with expenses when first starting out. I’m lucky enough where that’s not a issue and I can live comfortably but at one point I was working 135 hours a week.

We focused on the farmers market and did what we could listening to what people wanted/ were interested and kept killing it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://communiteawellness.com/tea/
• Instagram: Instagram.com/lotusbrewcoffeedrybar

Image Credits
Myself Jessie Lynn