“We’ve had a really hard few months just with a major decline in traffic,” said Sarah Davis of the coffee shop at 918 High St. “I think it’s a combination of not having a drive-thru and having a challenge with parking on top of it, also with everyone is in the middle of a pandemic, and their finances are impacted.”
There are also supply chain issues and inflation on products, and the shop has been operating in the red for the past few months after paying staff. And saying it’s been a challenging time is an understatement, Patrick Davis said.
“We are more than just a coffee shop,” he said. “We feed the homeless, we help people get off the streets, we help people get out of addiction and help people get treatment. There’s so much that we do that requires finances, that requires manpower, that requires help and we launched this coffee shop just over a year ago with the dream that some people’s lives don’t matter less than other lives. We believe in second chances.”
Samantha Wyatt’s second chance came just a couple of weeks after she was released from prison on a bank robbery charge out of Indiana where she passed a teller a note.
“It just fell into my lap,” she said. “It’s not only been helpful for me financially to get back on my feet ― because it’s hard for me to find a job with a record ― It’s been the most helpful mentally. When you get out of prison you feel you have a stamp on your forehead that says ‘felon’ and it’s just like a bad energy cloud you bring with you.”
She called the coffee shop a “passion project” for Patrick and Sarah Davis, and it’s been “a safe space” because “people are coming specifically to support you, so it helps your self-esteem.”
Sarah Davis said she and her husband came to a point that something needs to drastically change, or the dream of the coffee shop ends as it is not sustainable.
To help them soldier through this financial difficulty, Patrick and Sarah Davis started a GoFundMe fundraiser page online.
“We hate asking people to pour more money in, but it’s kind of a last-ditch effort ― let’s at least try to fight for what we have here,” Sarah Davis said.
The response to the GoFundMe has been “overwhelming,” she said. As of Tuesday afternoon, just a few days since launching the fundraiser, people have contributed more than $21,000.
Patrick and Sarah Davis, both of whom were previously incarcerated years ago, started the coffee house in May 2020. They want to see the mission continue and expand.
“We put it all on the line, and we put our entire savings and put it in this shop and this dream that there could be a place that longed for community could experience it once and for all, and people who were broken can be put back together, and people who have been loved-starved can feel love and feel embraced in a way they’ve never been embraced before,” Patrick Davis said.
And customers do appreciate the coffee shop, and its mission. Lynelle Lyons-Wilson said while it has the “coffee shop vibe, it’s so much more.” While she enjoys the food and drink, it’s also “the heart of the place.”
“Of course the hiring practices for the people that they want to give some jobs and opportunities to, it just warms your heart,” she said.
Customer Marissa Bales said the shop “brings people back to life.”
“It’s a safe place for people regardless of what background they come from,” she said.
But the fundraiser won’t sustain their business as they need customers.
Hamilton officials said they have been meeting with Patrick and Sarah Davis about how the city can help, including addressing the drive-thru issue. The city has already installed a small extension to The Fringe’s parking lot.
Sarah Davis said if they could install a drive-thru lane ― which is a logistical challenge given their location is near a three-way intersection on High Street ― it could easily double their business.
“At the end of the day, we want them to be successful. It’s just kind of figuring out how to make that happen,” said city spokesman Brandon Saurber. “Their mission is amazing, I personally go there all the time. I’m a huge fan of them and their business, and I know many in the city are as well.”
Photographer Nick Graham contributed to this story.
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