Imagine late nights tucked away in a dorm room in the holds of icy Northfield, Minnesota.. In order to get to Goodbye Blue Monday, the only coffee shop in town, we would brave subzero weather, freezing our eyelashes and noses. Stuck inside for months, we avoided our studies with pressing conversations about what it is we actually wanted out of life. This is the setting that conceived of what would, after many incarnations, become The Sentient Bean coffeehouse in Savannah, GA.
We were placed together as college freshmen on the sixth floor of the worst dorm at Carleton College. On the surface we couldn’t have been more different. Kelli was from Eugene, Oregon, a liberal college town characterized by lots of Tie-Dye, natural food stores and radical politics. Kristin was from a small family owned cattle ranch, miles from anywhere, on the border of Kansas and Nebraska. After a few brief moments of skeptism, we rapidly realized that we had the essential things in common, including our love of good food, good adventure, and good conversation. Significantly, we both had a deep and growing concern about consumerism in America as well as an ethic that encouraged us to act upon our beliefs.
Our initial brainstorming sessions envisioned a common space, dedicated to creating a community of active citizens who could help each other make better, more informed decisions in their day to day lives. We wanted to be simple, practical, and effective.
Amongst our friends, the conversation would frequently drift to tall tales of our ideal space. Kristin wanted to attach an all female mechanics garage that would include subversive informative literature in the waiting room. Another friend wanted to attach a children’s educational space focusing on performance and storytelling. Of course, many friends voted for a beer hall. Kelli always wanted good coffee, books, and international arts and crafts (as well as an excuse to travel). As graduation came upon us rather suddenly, no one had made any solid plans to carry it out.. it was just the common dream.
Inevitably, we all went our separate ways – to graduate school, to careers, or to travel and soul search. But the two of us were quite serious about a socially responsible business. We rightfully considered ourselves unfit for the general work force, impatient with academia, and ready to dive into something real. Kristin bumped into an opportunity to travel in Africa with a professor, and Kelli decided to test her commitment to the idea and cruise the country for prospective sites. We agreed to reconvene later and weigh the possibilities.
The criteria for location became a warm coast, not Texas, California, or Florida, but a small city with a lot of potential. New Orleans was too crazy, Mobile was too big .. Wilmington was too far North. It was either Charleston or Savannah. Research on the web made them sound like pretty similar cities. We figured an art college would produce more customers than the citadel. So we moved to Savannah to check it out and immediately fell in love with the town, the people, the trees, and the ocean. We still had no definite plans or commitments to our dream business.
Still needing some concrete direction, Kelli decided to return to California for an internship with human rights organization Global Exchange. Through Global Exchange, she learned about Fairtrade. Fairtrade was exactly the concept of international commerce that she theoretically supported, without realizing that a small but organized movement already existed. At this point in time fairtrade was only several years old in the United States. This revelation brought her ideas into alignment and renewed her commitment to opening a socially responsible business. The people at Global Exchange – Deborah James and Kevin Danaher – were very supportive of her idea and gave her the confidence to take that first leap of commitment. She hopped on her Motorcycle and drove back to Savannah, ready to dive in.
A year and a half passed between making the commitment to open a coffee shop and actually serving our first cup of coffee. We started writing the business plan in earnest in the summer of 2000. We met with the small business assistance people and checked out a book called “How to open a coffee shop.” What luck.. a step by step instruction book!