On Thursday, a significant moment unfolded for Café Rica as our co-founders, Jackson, Tristan, and Chad, proudly accepted the "Good For Governance" award on behalf of our beloved café. This honor comes as a testament to our unwavering dedication to using business as a force for good.
The award, based on an assessment taken by businesses in Michigan for 2023, evaluates the impact that businesses have on their communities and the environment, as well as their practices as employers. Café Rica not only met but excelled in these crucial areas.
Community Impact
We understand that a business's influence extends far beyond its walls. Café Rica has always believed in giving back to the community that has embraced us so warmly. From sourcing local ingredients to participating in community events and initiatives, we strive to be an active and positive force in the neighborhoods we serve.
Environmental Responsibility
In a world where environmental concerns are paramount, Café Rica is committed to sustainable practices. We are continuously working to reduce our carbon footprint, from sourcing ethically-produced coffee beans to implementing recycling and energy-efficient measures in our operations.
Employee Practices
Our employees are the heart and soul of Café Rica. We pride ourselves on fostering a supportive and inclusive workplace, offering fair wages, benefits, and growth opportunities for our team members. Their dedication and enthusiasm are instrumental in creating the warm and welcoming atmosphere our customers love.
Receiving the "Good For Governance" award is an immense honor, and we're thrilled to be recognized for our efforts. However, we see it as just the beginning of our journey towards making a positive impact.
Our next milestone? Achieving B Corp certification by the end of 2024. We're committed to taking our commitment to the next level, ensuring that every cup of Café Rica coffee not only tastes good but does good. This certification will further solidify our commitment to social and environmental responsibility and hold us accountable to the highest standards.
We're immensely grateful for the support of our loyal customers and the hard work of our dedicated team. As we move forward, we're excited to continue our mission of making Café Rica not just a place for great coffee but a force for good in our communities and our world. Thank you for being a part of our journey. ☕🌍💚
It certainly has been a while since we have spoken but here we are! I wanted to talk to y'all today about our newest coffee, Hacienda.
For many years we have been selling and brewing one of our favorite coffees, Cafe Naranjo Traditional. We love this coffee, it is great but we were beginning to find it harder and harder to import this wonderful coffee to Michigan. Not only was Naranjo getting harder and harder to get to the states, we also wanted to bolster our own Cafe Rica coffee offerings. After searching for several months we finally found a coffee from a plantation in southern Costa Rica that we loved. We had our roaster spin up a couple of test batches at different roasting times and we got to tasting! We finally settled on some roasting metrics and boom! Hacienda was born.
Hacienda is a single origin Medium Roast Costa Rican coffee. It has flavor notes of Orange, floral, and caramel. It is a smooth, bold, coffee that is perfect for your morning breakfast!
We are getting our newest shipment tomorrow and we will have freshly roasted Hacienda in shop and available online!
]]>We have wanted to uplift Battle Creek through the content we post. We see too many time negativity around Battle Creek when we know there is so much greatness here. This Project is a Passion Project of Breaking Bred & Cafe Rica that was created with the collaboration of another great Battle Creek Business looking to uplift the area, Free City Magazine. The first episode of Hidden Gems is about James McGee, who goes by the stage name of The Allah, where he tells us about his drive and why behind the work he does in Battle Creek and how he wants to leave a legacy here for others to build off of.
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One of the largest success of this year's Fall Menu was The Harvest Tostada. This vegan offering is a light and warming tostada that hits all the flavors you are craving in the cold weather. The Beans, Onion and Butternut squash is a perfect combination and will be featured again in the Winter.
I don't know about you but, for me, once the weather goes below freezing, I look for some food that will be comforting. One of the foods that brings the most comfort is a grilled cheese sandwich.
With help from Ricky and Cole, we have decided to bring you a grilled cheese menu that will comfort you through the coldest days of Michigan Winter. First starting out with Cole's Grilled Cheese. Cole wanted to end the ultimate dilemma of combining a grilled cheese and tomato soup on the go. This grilled cheese has fresh tomatoes, fresh basil and cheddar cheese. Next is Ricky's Grilly Cheesesteak. This sandwich will transport you to the streets of Philadelphia with grilled steak, grilled onion, and grilled peppers topped with melted pepper-jack cheese. The twist is the perfectly toasted butter crust bread that has a spongy inside and crunchy outside. Jackson is a self proclaimed grilled cheese connoisseur and has taken his knowledge and put it to the test in creating a special fusion style grilled cheese. As a lover of the great appetizer of Jalapeño Poppers and Grilled Cheese, Jackson has combined the two, to create the Jalapeño Popper Grilled Cheese and it will keep you warm all winter.
Next up on the menu preview is the age old question of "What Came First, The Chicken or the Egg?"
Waffle sandwiches have been extremely fun to make and develop. They have been one of our signature dishes which have allowed us to show some of our creativity. This dish has been an idea for a long time and has almost even been a feature of the week a few times, however, it always was missing something. That is until now, until the in-house strawberry ghost pepper jam. That jam is the ingredient that marries the chicken and the egg perfectly with the waffle. This meal is something you want to try out and find out which came first.
This winter menu is something special and we are super excited to present it to everyone and to put the cherry on top we are releasing a new Cafe Rica Roasted Coffee, a Natural Yirgacheffe. This coffee will wow many. It is such a unique coffee and might be our best coffee to date.
Come see what then winter menu has to offer as it is now available for in-shop ordering and Online Ordering.
]]>We also moved and opened up our new 1900 square foot restaurant on February 29 (three whole weeks before large scale COVID 19 restrictions came into place). We love our new beautiful space and cannot wait until we can have guests in here again. We have big plans for our space in the coming year and we are excited for what 2021 is going to bring to not only our business but our downtown community.
Community has always been one of the most, if not most important pillar of our business. When we decided to open a business we chose Battle Creek, not only is it our hometown but it is full of so much potential. Any of the successes that we enjoy will be in large part because the Battle Creek community has embraced us and supported us beyond measure.
2021 is going to be our biggest year yet, we continue to expand our product line with new cold brews, coffees, services, and foods. We are soon going to be ready to announce our newest exciting expansion and we are more than ready to share it with you all! Stay tuned for details, they will be coming soon and they will be fun and exciting!
Thank you all for joining us on this journey and showing us all of the support that you have during this past year, we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.
Hope you all have a great year and until next time!
]]>Ever since we saw a meme on Instagram, from one of the most well known celebrity baristas in the country Mohsin, IG: @One_Moh_Pour, we have been dying to try a Natty Yirg, or Natural Yirgacheffe. And Today was the day!
With a lot of hype behind this varietal Josh was super excited to see a bag of it down in Texas when we was visiting for Thanksgiving. He instantly grabbed it and decided it would be perfect for The Morning Cup. So we poured it up and put it to the test.
]]>This week we decided to experiment a little bit and make another sauce that we have been wanting to prepare a dish with. We have always had basil on hand for our Caprese bagel sandwich and for the tomato sunrise. These have been staples at our shop dating back to the 80 W Michigan days. We almost always had an issue with some of it always going back and being thrown away. We had always toyed around with the idea of making a home made pesto but we usually try to have multiple uses for food items that we buy and offer. At that point we did not have any kind of nut to put into the pesto so we didn’t want to buy a product simply for a sauce we would use on one or two items. Enter fall and our Cider Mill Waffles. These came with cranberries, apples, bacon, condensed milk, and walnuts. With these walnuts we then had all of the pieces to make up a delicious pesto!
I had never made pesto before but I knew the basic ingredients list and decided one day at shop to go live on instagram and make pesto! It's a simple process, take a food processor, fill it up with basil leaves, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and pepper. Then you blend it all up and presto chango you’ve got some pesto! I have to admit, for never making pesto or even really having a recipe it turned out well. We then decided to take that and make a chicken pesto wrap out of it. The initial results have been positive, people seem to like it and they keep ordering it so we placed it on the seasonal menu for people to keep trying out.
This is how we utilize the seasonal menu/specials board. We experiment with new items and see how people like them, if people like the item enough we keep it and throw it on the real menu. If the item doesn’t turn out to be as popular as we had hoped we just let it fall off and we continue with a new product. This stage is one of our favorite parts of cooking and having a food menu. We love to experiment with new food and they’re successful just about as often as they aren’t. We will keep experimenting and continue to have new and fun items available for everyone to try!
If y’all have any suggestions or ideas don’t hesitate to let us know!
Until next time,
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The food bank approached us and asked if we could come up with a meal from each food box so they could show people that you could make some cool dishes with items in their box. The first month we we made some apple crisp waffles. We took apples, granola, and eggs from the provided box and used them to make the waffles and the apple crisp topping.
The most recent box we received had two acorn squashes in it and we had recently test cooked a chorizo tostada so we decided it would be fun to make up a soup recipe. We roasted the squash in the oven with a little bit of brown sugar. We then began to cook some chorizo in one pan while we pan fried up onions, peppers, celery, cauliflower, navy beans, and corn to unlock their flavors. Once the squash was done cooking we put it into a pot and emulsified it with some chicken stock and heavy whipping cream to make a creamy delicious soup base. We then combined the chorizo and veggies into the pot and let them cook together so the flavors could combine. 20 min later we had completed delicious hearty soup that anyone can make!
This project with the Food Bank has been fun and challenging and to has helped us broaden our culinary horizons because we don’t get to choose what is in these boxes. We love to cook so this has been right up our alley and we have had a lot of fun doing this!
Until next time
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We get GREAT coffee from Cafe Naranjo in Costa Rica and we love it and so do our customers, online and in the shop. We were hesitant to pick up a different Costa Rican coffee because we kind of felt that we already had the best coffee Costa Rica offers and that we didn’t want to essentially compete with ourselves with a new variety unless there was something that we could find that Cafe Naranjo didn’t offer, in comes Black Honey.
Over the last few years we had drank many different varieties of Costa Rican coffee and struggled to find one that was as good or better than the Naranjo varieties that we currently were offering. This all changed when we bought our father some Costa Rican Honey processed coffee from Waterstreet Coffee Roasters over in Kalamazoo Michigan. This was a smooth, rich, and sweet flavor that we had only ever tasted in African varietals from Ethiopia or Burundi. We were hooked, this was something that some day, we wanted to either roast ourselves or have someone roast for us.
Lee has been roasting us Ethiopian coffee for a little over a year now, our pour over customers love it and it has now reached cult like following status it seems. We liked it so much that we developed summertime cold brew mixing the Ethiopian and a Guatemalan that Lee also roasts for us, we call it Paradise. After this experiment worked out well, we asked Lee if he had access to any Honey processed Costa Rican coffee, he said yes and we. Bought a bag of it. A little over a week later Lee brought us our first bag of what we call Black Honey.
So what exactly is honey processed coffee? Honey processed coffee is when the producer takes off the cherry fruit from the bean but does not remove the sticky membrane of the fruit. This leaves behind a semi sweet flavor that imparts itself on the coffee bean. But why is it called black honey? The farm we sourced the coffee from has three different ways it processes honey coffee. Yellow Honey: Coffee is turned hourly on raised beds for a few days, then transferred to a greenhouse and turned regularly. Red Honey: Coffee is turned several times a day and dried for longer in the greenhouse. And finally Black Honey: Coffee is turned once a day.
We are beyond excited with the initial response that we have gotten from the new coffee, Lee our roaster is also excited as this is the first time he has ever done anything like this. Most of all we are excited that people are drinking and enjoying good quality coffee. We hope you all have a great day and be well!
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This spring we are bringing back a two favorites and have developed three new drinks. The classics are our Mint Julep Cold Brew and out Raspberry Basil Lemonade. The Mint Julep Cold Brew is made with cold brew coffee, mint leaves, coarse sugar and simple syrup. You muddle the coarse sugar and leaves together to release the mint oil and then pour in ice and cold brew, topping it off with a splash of simple syrup and stir. This is a refreshing cool beverage that is good at any time of day. The Raspberry basil lemonade is a twist on a typical lemonade variant by adding a few torn basil leaves, shaken and then poured over ice.
Our new seasonal drinks are the Plum Blossom Cold Brew, the Lemon Lavender Latte and the Orange Lavender Latte.The second two are a play off of our popular lavender latte but we add either orange or lemon bitters to the drink adding a delicious citrus aroma that pairs wonderfully with the floral lavender. These drinks are good hot but I think the aromatics and flavor really shine in an iced latte. The Plum Blossom Cold Brew is made with cold brew pours over ice, a splash on simple syrup and 3 dashes of plum bitters. This is a cool, refreshing drink that you can sip while sitting on the porch reading or watching the day go by.
Another new product line that we have is coffee roasted by our friend Lee Winkler, he owns Little Quiet Coffee Co. He roasts here in Battle Creek and has several delicious varietals of coffee, so far the Ethiopian and Burundi have been our favorites. All of his coffees are light roasts and have huge amounts of distinct flavors. Little Quiet Coffee Co. is a staple on our pour over list at the shop. Thank you everyone for stopping by and taking some time out of you day to join us in coffee talk, take it easy!
Jackson and Tristan
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We are going on week three or four of our shop being closed down due to the COVID-19 mess. We are still going strong with our online sales and we cannot thank you all enough for all of your support. We have also began doing some Cold Brew and other cold beverage pick up’s on Friday’s. The first test went well so we expended the options from just Cold Brew to all of our cold beverages. We are going to keep these options open from here on out and we hope to see you all as soon as we can!
To curb some of our boredom we have decided to start doing a new video cocktail series. We have been posting our videos on our social media platforms and our YouTube page. Tristan and I have a passion for all beverages, coffee or not. As a former bartender Tristan has always been interested in mixology and making cocktails so we have decided to do a series to show you all how to make some of our favorite cocktails! So far we have covered the Old Fashioned and the Manhattan. Two classic whisky cocktails that everyone should know how to make, they are simple and delicious. This week we are staying on the whisky train, bourbon more specifically, and will be showing you all how to make a Mint Julep. The Julep is the official cocktail fo the Kentucky derby and is a quintessential spring cocktail. The sweetness of the bourbon and simple syrups pairs up well with the refreshing leafy green mint leaves. It is a perfect cocktail to sip on a warm spring day.
If you all have any cocktail’s that you would like us to make a video about please let us know via social media or shoot us an email at info@getcaferica.com and also don’t forget that if you would like to keep updated on our Cafe Rica news, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Facebook.
Thank you again,
Take it easy
]]>It certainly has been a while since we have last blogged and a lot has happened!
We are here on day 5 of being closed due to the pandemic that all of you are well aware of. We decided to close up our storefront for several reasons but the number one reason was the health of our customers and our staff. This has been a tough time for everyone but never fear, we will get through this together. The communities support has been second to none and we thank you all very much for all of that support! We wouldn’t be here without you all and for that, we thank you!
As we noted before, our storefront is closed but that does not mean that we are closed for business. For those of you who don’t know, we started Cafe Rica in 2016 as an online store selling bags of Cafe Naranjo coffee from Costa Rica. Our father discovered this coffee many years ago and has been drinking it ever since. We couldn’t get this coffee in the United States so we decided that we would import the coffee ourselves and bring it to the people online. For the past four years we have been shipping our coffee nationwide to many loyal customers who much like us, discovered this coffee when they visited Costa Rica. We have found that something as simple as taking a sip of warm coffee can transport you to another time and place. Nostalgia and travel via memories can be important during times like these where many of us are on “stay at home” orders. If you have been missing travel, the beach, the tropics, or even just miss being out in public sharing a cup of coffee with your best friends (we know we miss seeing people every day) maybe we can help. We still are shipping coffee out to customers nationwide and even as close at Battle Creek. We are also expanding our coffee selection in out store to include a selection of roasts from our friend Lee and Little Quiet Coffee Company. These new roasts will be live on the site soon and we are so very happy to share his delicious coffee with all of you! Stop on by our website and take a look at what we have to offer while our storefront is closed!
April is fast approaching and for those who have been with us for a few years you know that means its Mug Club season! For those of you who don’t know, let’s fill you in on what the Mug Club is all about. We offer a 20 oz travel tumbler that can be refilled at our shop for the same price as a 16 oz cup. You also get $1 off of any drink on Monday (Mug Club Monday), and an extra shot of espresso in any espresso based drink. The 2020 mug is a gorgeous Stainless Steel Matte Mint traveler mug which will keep your drink piping hot or ice cold for hours. They are available for sale now and we will be sending out mugs today!
Thank you everyone for dropping by today and thank you all for your continued support! Until next time!
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As we discussed earlier this week, our time at 80 West will be coming to an end on February 12th. We are excited for the move but we have gotten a lot of questions about where our customers can get their coffee while we are closed? There are several options to turn to but our favorite is using the French press.
The French press is a brewing device that you can use at home, in the office, camping, and nearly anywhere that you can find hot water. Using it is simple, you pour in coarsely ground coffee (for 3-4 cups we suggest 50 grams), then you add 850 grams of hot water (roughly 200 degrees) and you let it brew for 3-4 minutes. You then press the plunger down and pour your coffee out and enjoy!
Our favorite part about the French press is that it is versatile and can be used in so many locations. They are perfect for travel or for brewing in the office when you don’t want the regular brew thats in the pot. We also use the French press to make our tea concentrates for our tea lattes.
Thank you for joining us today, we will be letting everyone know about when our open house will be and we are beyond excited to see everyone in our new shop! Don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter where we discuss our week in review, our featured drink of the week, and exclusive offers on our online store!
Thanks for stopping by and take it easy!
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February is quickly approaching and it is a pretty damn big month for us as we will be moving to our new location at 62 E Michigan Ave. When we started two summers ago in the cargo units on Hambly and McCambly we couldn’t have imagined how quickly we would be able to move. We started serving cold brew and hot batch brew coffee in an 8 x 20 cargo container in 2018 and in February of 2020 we are moving into a newly renovated 1900 square foot space on Michigan Avenue! As quickly as this has seemed we have been working on this move to our permanent space for over a year.
First, little bit of background on our space, 62 E Michigan Ave is home to JPG Resources, a food consulting business founded by Jeff Grogg. We met Jeff back in 2017 at the Can-Do-Kitchen when we were in their food entrepreneurship boot camp. As I am sure we have told you all before, we kept in touch with Jeff and the rest is history. We had a few meetings about the possibility of us moving into his new, undisclosed, downtown location but we had just signed a lease for our current location and weren’t in a position to move into a full large location yet. We were confident in our concept but had no proof yet, so we went full steam ahead into 80 West and worked as hard as we could to find out if we could make the cafe work.
This move has been challenging and a long process but it has taught us a lot about ourselves and what we can bring to the downtown table. We had to finalize business plans, meet with contractors, coordinate our schedules to synch up with other schedules and much much more. We are very close to having the build out completed and we are very excited for everyone to see the space. We have put a lot of hard work and effort into making Cafe Rica a place where everyone feels welcome and to make it a place that you can call a second home. We hope this vision and mission has been translated into our new space. We plan on having different events and performances there, please let us know of anything that you would like to see there!
With all of that being said, we are planning to have out Grand Opening on February 29th, so far, everything has been on schedule to allow that to happen and we are confident that we can open on that day! We hope you all can make it down that day or week to see our new place and we will announce a date for an open house that will be before we open. Thank you for all of your support for us during this venture and we hope to continue this journey with all of you.
If you would like to see a fly-by video of your new space you can see it here.
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Earlier this week we were asked a simple question that we should have been able to answer easily and directly, what is your motto? We sat and thought about it for a minute and realized that we were unable to give an answer, we don’t really have a motto. We have said things over and over, “The Gold Standard”; “Battle Creek’s premier coffee company”; “The Best Coffee in Town”. Those are things that we have repeated over and over and things that we stand by but do they really encapsulate what we are as a company, as a brand? That is something that we had to sit down and think about, what was our motto? What is the message that we really want to send?
We started to think about it and we had to ask ourselves a couple of questions, what problem do we solve (as a shop) for people, and what brings people into our shop? The problem that we solve is that people want high quality coffee. We pride ourselves on providing high quality coffee every day. All of our beans are responsibly sourced and are certified fair trade, this is important to us as it ensures that farmers are treated fairly and get paid what they deserve. High quality coffee is the start but what else brings people in? As we thought about we it took a look back at some of the things that we do, such as our podcast, our community outreach, and our events and it became clear. People come in because we make them feel at home, we invest in our community and make Cafe Rica be a part of the Battle Creek community.
We started focusing on community building back when we were attending the Can Do Kitchen, through that program we met several small business owners that we had no idea had businesses. We thought to ourselves, “how many businesses like these are in Battle Creek and how could we show people what we have to offer?” From this conversation Drinks with Los Hermanos was born, we interview local business owners and ask them about what inspired them to open their own business and how they plan to keep it going. We feel that this podcast exemplifies what we want to accomplish at Cafe Rica, building community and building long lasting relationships.
We feel that long lasting relationships is what will bring not only us, but all small business, long lasting success. Without the trust and confidence of the people a business will not be able to thrive. We here at Cafe Rica want to bring you good coffee and good conversation, we want to build relationship and know all of our customers.
We want to have Strong Coffee and Stronger Relationships.
]]>I hope everyone I having a great week and a fantastic start to the new year! Remember, get one inch better every day and you’ll get to your goal!
Today I wanted to talk bout a product line of ours that isn’t coffee related, our Tea Lattes. What is a tea latte? Well I’m glad you asked! A Tea Latte is pretty much how it sounds, a latte made with tea instead of espresso. Many coffee shops have these on their menu and they are made in a variety of different ways. A common way to make these drinks is to buy the pre-made concentrates that already have milk or a milk alternative mixed in. For these you simply pour the mixture into a pitcher and steam to temperature and pow, your Chai Latte is all ready to go. This method is a commonly used method that provides consistency and speed for these beverages. The method we use is a bit different and we feel provides a superior hand crafted product.
As many of you know, we get our tea from Fraser Tea, they are local to Michigan and we met them at the Made in Michigan food expo two years ago. We tried a sample of their tea and were hooked and have used them for our tea offerings ever since. While browsing their website we came across larger bags of Overdrive Chai, we ordered it and it has been as they say, history.
We brew our tea into a concentrate (a trick we learned at coffee fest in Indianapolis) using a ratio of 48 grams of tea and 32 oz of hot water, we brew it for ten minutes and our concentrate is all set. When someone orders a tea latte we then take 2 oz of tea (the same amount of espresso used in a standard latte) steam your milk of choice, add a smidge of vanilla, and a powdering of cinnamon and out comes what many people have said is the best Chai Tea Latte that they have ever drank. We take pride in the fact that guests have gave us that feedback because our main goal is to provide the best beverages we can offer.
The other Tea Latte that we offer all year long is the London Fog, this is a drink made with Earl Grey Tea, vanilla, and three dashes of lavender bitters. This offers a warm, semi-sweet, floral drink that can brighten up even the most dreary day.
Seasonally we offer the Pumpkin Pie Chai, Hot Spicy Cinnamon, and the Apple Spice Gingerbread latte. We wanted to make an effort to set ourselves apart from other coffee shops by overing a larger variety of lattes while maintaining our high quality products.
I hope everyone has a great day and a very productive second half of the week, let’s finish it out strong!
-Jackson-
P.S.
Don’t forget to check out our social media outlets for other shop news, events, and videos!
I hope everybody is having a great beginning to the new year and that you’re still on target for your goals and or resolutions for the year! If you didn’t watch our video the other day we spoke about helping keep each other accountable for our new goals. It can be tough sledding trying to go through them alone, so share your goals with close friends so they can encourage and support you!
Today I just wanted to share an alternative use for coffee other than brewing and drinking it. Last year we had the opportunity to partner with Territorial Brewing Company on a coffee beer! Hard Bock Cafe, as you could imagine, is a bock is a dark German lager that was finished with about 20 pounds of our Cafe Naranjo coffee. I may sound a little bit biased when I say this but Hard Bock Cafe is one of the, if not the best coffee inspired beer that I have ever had. The beer was smooth and delicious and had a terrific caramel, coffee finish to it. This beer was the brain child of Territorial Brewer Trevor Sandberg along with some help from Dan Chapin. Their talent and creativity really came through with this beer and it was one of the best beers that I had the pleasure of drinking is 2019. We have been a big fan of Territorial beer for a long time but having to opportunity to partner with a local business was a great experience that we hopefully have a chance to do again this year!
Thats all for this week! Now that both of us are here at the shop full time we have been able to write these blogs more consistently and we hope that you all enjoy them. We plan to post a new blog every week on Wednesday and hope to see you all again next week.
Thanks for stopping by and have a GREAT week everyone!
-Jackson-
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Jackson here and today I am going to be putting down some words about a new and exciting piece of news that not all of you may be aware of yet.
As of today, December 31st 2019 I, Jackson, am officially a full time Café Rica employee. Now some of you may ask, “But Jackson, you already work there a lot, what do you mean full time?” Well as of today I no longer work for the Department of Defense. Until today I have been splitting time between the shop and my full time job for the DoD and it has been quite the journey. It truly has been a life changing eight years working for the DoD and without my job there we would not have been able to launch and build Café Rica into what it is today. This job has given me the opportunity to learn leadership. Safety, management, and operations from some high quality, smart individuals. It has shown me the ins and outs of a government agency and it has given me the opportunity to travel the country and go places I have never been before.
I am excited and ready for this new challenge as it has been something we have been working towards for about two years now. We have worked hard and positioned ourselves to be able to take me on as a full time employee and we are ready to take the next step in our business journey. This change will allow us to focus more on marketing and general operations rather than just simply grinding out the day to day operations. This will improve our service and efficiency as we will now always have two employees at the shop ready to serve your needs!
Today is a big day for me, it closes out my first decade as an adult, one in which has seen its ups and downs and has had massive changes in it. Just to look back and think about who/where I was ten years ago is astounding and quite the look back. It’s crazy for me to look back and see how far I have come and it makes me even more excited to see where this company will be ten years from now.
Until then, let’s raise a glass of whatever you’re drinking to the New Year, new decade, and to new beginnings.
-Jackson-
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Just wanted to stop in and let everyone know that Bill Broderick of our local newspaper The Battle Creek Enquirer has named us, Cafe Rica, one of his top ten stops of 2019 on his food series "Bill's Bites".
Every Week Bill would choose a location in Battle Creek or the surrounding area and would try out their food and write an article about it for the paper. He visited our shop on August 28th and we were thrilled that he not only chose us as a stop but that he had a great experience here with us!
We would like to thank Bill again for coming out, trying our coffee and food, and showing a local shop like ours some love. As most of you know we are trying to help build up our community and features like this go a long way towards helping this community grow to what we know it can be.
If you all want to take a look at the article the link is below and don't forget to follow us on all of our social media platforms!
Thanks a lot everyone!
Take it Easy!
-Jackson-
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Last week we decided to bring on board Josh Millikin, a young, local 19-year old that has huge aspirations. He has a very positive attitude and strives to do great things in a positive way. On The Morning Cup, he will be talking about his life, his journey and also interviewing people along the way.
Check it out on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Sticher and many more.
]]>On this episode, we talk with a local artist, Cory Patterson. Cory is the mastermind behind "Out Of The Woodwork". The art show we are hosting at our shop on May 24th. We talk about how he found a passion for photography. He also has lived around the world creating art and a bond with many people. He moved back to the area last year and is looking to boost the art culture in Battle Creek.
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On this episode, we talk with a local artist, Cory Patterson. Cory is the mastermind behind "Out Of The Woodwork". The art show we are hosting at our shop on May 24th. We talk about how he found a passion for photography. He also has lived around the world creating art and a bond with many people. He moved back to the area last year and is looking to boost the art culture in Battle Creek.
His first step to doing so was collaborating with us on a Show featuring his work. It is a collection of pictures he has taken all over the world transposed on wood. We will be having live art as well and some craft adult beverages sponsored by BCMAMS. It should be a good time and great art.
If you would like to watch the full interview here is the link to our youtube!
You can also listen to the show on all major platforms under 'The Los Hermanos Podcast!
You can also follow this link as well.
We hope you enjoy!
]]>Stop by or hit us up on social media if you have any questions or if you want to know more about any of these new exciting drinks!
Take it easy,
-Jackson-
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I wanted to put some pen to paper about an amazing opportunity that has come our way. If you have followed our journey for a while you may know that Coffee Fest in Chicago in 2017 was a catalyst to our café business. Our initial plan was to open a café 3-5 years after we got our distribution network going, but plans change and here we are in April 2019 with a damn near full-blown café in the heart of our hometown of Battle Creek. Coffee Fest opened our eyes to the world of coffee and everything that it has to offer. There were latte art competitions, vendor exhibits, coffee shop displays, roasters, and nearly everything you could imagine that had anything to do with coffee. One of the things that piqued my interest the most was the cold brew competition. We had not yet thought about selling cold brew coffee or even making it for anyone other than ourselves, but there were different coffee shops and roasters bringing in their brews to compete against others in the area and the country.
The competition was comprised of two brackets, still cold brew and nitro. For those of you who may not know the difference, still cold brew is coffee that is served under minimal pressure through a tap system or poured out of a pitcher or glass container. Nitro cold brew is a pressurized cold brew that has been infused with nitrogen and served at about 30-40 PSI. This gives the cold brew a full-bodied flavor and gives it a silky smooth texture while you’re drinking it. It is still satisfying for us to watch customers try “straight” nitro for the first time. Their faces light up and more often than not they cannot believe that what they just drank is “just black coffee”. It is one of my favorite beverages and is Tristan’s favorite way to drink cold brew.
It is amazing to think how far we have come in so little time and we have a LONG way to go still. We have plans, upon plans, upon plans that we are working everyday on making a reality. There will be more to follow on our journey down to Indy, and if you know us we will be documenting it all, in order to take you with us!
Jump ahead two years to yesterday. I was sitting at work going over my calendar for the day and I received and email from an event director at Coffee Fest with some great news. “Your application has been accepted and below is the link to the cold brew competition bracket. Please respond to this email no later than April 19 to confirm your participation in the Coffee Fest Indianapolis Cold Brew competition.” I don’t think that I have responded to an email faster in my life. I was pumped, I was BEYOND pumped. Picture Dwight Schrute doing air kicks and pacing back and forth through the office. That’s the level we are talking here. Thank god I had the office all to myself yesterday or it could have been slightly more embarrassing than it already was.
So here we are “Dem Coffee Boyz” from Battle Creek, and we are excited to be taking the show on the road down to Indy and we are going to put our “Best Cold Brew in Town” up against some other professionals and see where it ranks. Some laugh at the fact that we had those “Best Coffee in Town” signs made up but a) it is true, the people have spoken, and 😎 I have nothing but full confidence in how good our cold brew coffee is. I would put it up against damn near any brew in the world and here at end of May, we will be doing just that down in Indianapolis.
It is amazing to think how far we have come in so little time and we have a LONG way to go still. We have plans, upon plans, upon plans that we are working everyday on making a reality. There will be more to follow on our journey down to Indy, and if you know us we will be documenting it all, in order to take you with us!
Until then, take it easy!
-Jackson-
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Jackson and I really wanted to get a unique packaging. We had used 12oz beer bottles that weren’t exactly we wanted. In our search for the perfect bottle, we came across the 8oz French Square bottle. We just instantly liked the look of the bottle. We sort of said that it looked like the classic milk bottles. We went with it and now it was time to get our label in order. We met a local branding expert out of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Missy, the owner of Handmade Kalamazoo, headed the branding class in the Can-Do Kitchen boot camp and was the artist that has put together our beautiful bottle labels. We saw what she did with our friends from Physic Kombucha and we wanted something that would pop and draw people’s eyes straight to our bottle. She was able to do that and brought our vision to reality. So with our packaging all set, it was game time to get street legal.
March has come and we contacted our MDARD agent to get inspected. Jackson and I got to the kitchen early and prepped and were ready to take this step in growing our company. Scott K got there at noon and 90 minutes later we were officially licensed to sell Café Rica Gold Brew Bottles. The farmers market was right around the corner and 2018 was off to a great start. I at this point was still living in Grand Rapids, Michigan working 2 jobs and Jackson still lived in Battle Creek, Michigan working his full-time job. Our plan was to go to farmer’s markets and build our brand that way. Of course, plans change on a dime.
One early March morning Jackson went into the Battle Creek Chamber of Commerce to congratulate a friend on a new job when the president of the chamber stopped Jackson to tell him about a possible opportunity that had not yet been publicly released and that we should keep an eye out for it. We later talked about it and decided if we could get this opportunity we should go for it. So, when it was time, we applied and we started to plan what if. April came, we got the call, and it was time to execute. We had to figure out how to put a coffee shop in at 20’x8’, retrofitted shipping container.
We were slated to move into BC Cargo late May and we geared up to make the move. May 15th I officially moved back to Battle Creek and was ready to pounce. The project had a slight push back but once those boxes touched ground we got straight to work. We spent the next two weeks working long days trying to get ready for opening. Our Dad, George Bredehoft even came out of retirement to help us. We finally got it finished in Mid-June and just went to work. I spent long hours in that box serving coffee and building relationships with people. That is the most important goal we have in this company. We really just want to do the best for you guys and want to listen to all of your input. The plan was originally to do one summer in the cargo units and then focus on our wholesale in October and get through the winter. However, we received a lot of support from the Battle Creek Community and it was proven to us that there was room for us and want for us in this market. So, we started looking for a more permanent place to stay.
It was mid-October that we were approached with an idea that the Small Business Development Fund of The City of Battle Creek had. This idea was to create a shared food retail incubator that we and Simply Sensational Berries would be the first tenants. We like the idea and thought it was a great next step in expanding so we went with it. The project was slated to be complete in late December to early January. Winter came fast and we had to halt operations in the first week of November.
Since then Jackson and I have been working on things that aren’t directly related to Café Rica but more towards building relationships and the community of Battle Creek. We have started a podcast that is geared towards shining a spotlight on local leaders and success stories. Drinks with Los Hermanos has been fun so far and we plan on keeping this project around for the near future. We also started the Build Battle Creek Campaign that is looking to change the narrative in our community to a positive one that pushes people to create the place they want to live in. I know I can speak for Jackson on this, you guys have been amazing in 2018! We do this for you guys. We love seeing the people that come in for a coffee enjoying their time. We love seeing returning customers online that love us bringing a little bit of Costa Rica to them. One of our Goals for 2019 is to build more relationship and really create a Café Rica family. So here is a cheer to all of you that supported us in 2018 and we hope that 2019 is another great year!
-Tristan Bredehoft
]]>At this point in time Café Rica USA was still in its infancy and we were learning and looking for a direction to steer this ship we were building. A few weeks prior we sat down and discussed what we thought we wanted to so. After 3 months of officially being a company, this was the first time we really made a plan for this new venture. This was well before we even thought about becoming a Cold Brew Company. We figured meeting with the Cooperative and learning more about their operations was the best thing we should do at that point.
So we called Café Naranjo, scheduled a tour. The Espiritu Santo Tour was not something they only provided for just their business partners but was open to the public. On this tour, we were shown the facilities that they have built in the past 50 years and an inside look at the process and the journey their coffee takes. From the very beginning, where our mother got to pick some ripe coffee berries, to the roasting process. It was a very informative tour that we were able to capture a little bit of. I suggest that if you are in Naranjo Region to visit the cooperative and take this tour, but until then enjoy this short video.
-Tristan Bredehoft
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When we started this company we vowed to never treat our customers like they were a number. We have a couple policies that we follow that help us convey that mission. We personally pack every order and don’t hire a 3rd party to fulfill the orders. This allows us to have quality control and make sure that only the best product is leaving our facilities. In efforts to improve the quality of our product, we started creating a customized unboxing experience. This leads us to use 100% recycled shipping envelopes and boxes that have our logo hand stamped on them to give that handcrafted experience. Not only do we want customers to get the handcrafted experience, we also want to build relationships with them. We want customers to feel more like a family member. We build these relationships by sending personalized, handwritten notes in hopes that they will open up the relationship with us."Doing the right thing is always the right thing" -Gary Vee
We want everyone to feel free to contact us to either give suggestions or to resolve a problem they had. We have very lenient complaint policies, if there is a problem, we will do everything possible to fix the issue. We are really here for the customer and will always do the right thing. Just send us an email and we will personally reply in a reasonable amount of time.
Thank you to all out customers, future, and past, we really do appreciate all of you and would love to hear from you soon!
Tristan
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]]>Now I have always preferred drinking cold coffee. It started out when I was younger when my mother introduced me to the Starbucks Carmel Frappuccino when I was in the 4th grade. Even to this day when I go to Starbucks, and I’m a Gold Card member if that says anything about how much I go, my usual is still the Carmel Frappuccino. Anyone that has ordered Starbucks with me can attest to that.
In the summer of 2016 I lived in San Francisco for a summer; one day I walked into the Starbucks that was across the street from where I lived. I waited in line looking at the menu thinking about straying away from my usual order. This is when, for the first time, I saw ‘Cold Brew’. Knowing nothing about this drink I decided to order it. I say they're waiting for my drink to be made and my name to be called. When it came to be my turn, my name was yelled out, I revived my drink, and I was confused. At a first glance, I thought I had just received a regular iced coffee. Since I was on my way to work I just grabbed my drink and got moving towards the BART.
When I told my first sip of Cold Brew I realized I did not get a regular iced coffee, but a delicious, strong and more flavorful iced coffee!
Of course, I was drinking it black, thanks to my college roommate, and I really enjoyed the strong taste. I did not know what the difference was but I liked it. Fast forward a little shy of a year and my brother said that he was going to make his own Cold Brew. This is when I learned that the process of brewing it or “steeping” takes 18–20 hours to complete. My brother brought some to me poured it into the mug, no cream, and no sugar. He then says “Try this, this is some good shit!”
I tipped my cup back starting drinking it like I would any type of coffee. I was so amazed at what he gave me. The coffee was so smooth it felt like I was drinking liquid silk. All the bitterness that is normally associated with coffee was GONE! I could taste all the natural flavors and sense more of a sweeter taste to it. Remember there is nothing else added to it. Ever since then I’ve been infatuated with Cold Brew coffee.
The Cold Brew process takes away the acidity so it’s easier to drink without any additives. And drinking coffee black or the only way to taste all the wonderful flavors that coffee has to offer. The best part about Cold Brew is…it’s just the process in which it is brewed. It might be brewed in room temperature water or even colder, but that does not mean you have to drink it cold. You can drink that coffee cold or hot, whichever way you prefer. At first it might be a little stronger than most people like it, but in my opinion stronger coffee better.
Next time you get coffee and Cold Brew is an option GET IT! I promise you it won’t disappoint.
-Tristan
FB: @CafeRicaUSA
IG: @Cafe_Rica_USA
]]>Roasted coffee naturally contains Essential Oils. You can see and taste these in your brewed cup. But you can also take advantage of these oils as a skincare product and save money.
]]>Roasted coffee naturally contains Essential Oils. You can see and taste these in your brewed cup. But you can also take advantage of these oils as a skincare product and save money.
Don’t throw out your grounds! Before the grounds are completely cool, take a spoonful of the warm grounds and massage them into your skin. Then wash them off with warm water. Notice that your skin is now softer. You’ve just re-used the grounds you were going to throw away; saving yourself some money on commercial skin care products. This is one of many ways we use coffee to live a Greener life.
— Café Rica USA
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