Morningside Cafe

Morningside Cafe is a coffee, and entertainment venue located in Detroit's MorningSide neighborhood! Our goal is to provide the residents of the three contiguous communities of Cornerstone Village, East English Village (EEV), and MorningSide with their very own local coffee shop and community space. 

This venture will restore a missing amenity that has been absent for far too long within our community. This community asset will also assist in stimulating the neighborhood economy. Morningside Cafe will create jobs for residents of Cornerstone, EEV, and Morningside and provide educational and entrepreneurial opportunities for our youth. 

Every neighborhood deserves to have a gathering space where they can meet up with friends, have access to free wifi, and on top of that, have a refreshing cup of coffee and a delicious baked good! With Morningside Cafe, we will provide that and more! Our neighborhood has been without a spacwe of this nature for quite some time now and our neighbors usually have to travel to suburban communities such as the Grosse Pointes, or even as far as downtown and Midtown for their coffee needs or just a space to meet up with friends. We want to give our community that space where everyone can gather together and enjoy the atmosphere of a new, local coffee shop. With Morningside Cafe, we look forward to being your new, local coffee destination! 

My project is an awardee of Motor City Match (MCM), Detroit's premier small business grant and resource program that's designed to connect small businesses with brick and mortar locations, technical assistance, and grant funding up to $100,000. Our goal for this crowdfunding campaign is to raise $40,000. The funds will be utilized for our buildout, the purchase of coffee equipment (i.e. coffee makers, an espresso machine, coffee grinders, etc.) and to secure the matching grant needed from Motor City Match of $40,000 to open for business in early 2019.

We're launching this venture because our community has lacked a coffee shop for well over a decade now. Unfortunately, we do not have that community space that our neighbors can meet up with friends or have access to free wi-fi. Far too often our hard-earned money is benefiting other communities, while ours continue to lack the important amenities that those thriving communities have. With Morningside Cafe, we look to curbed that trend so those dollars can remain within our communities of Cornerstone, East English Village, and MorningSide. This venture will generate economic growth, spur business development along the East Warren commercial corridor and play a major role in rejuvenating the community all at the same time.

I am extremely passionate about this project and excited about what it will do for our community. Having grown up in MorningSide, I vividly recall the days of East Warren being a thriving commercial corridor full of activity. The impact it had on our community was truly priceless as there was a sense of unity within all our communities. Our neighbors were united and often spending a signigficant amount of time together at an establishment on East Warren. This corridor was walkable and filled with pedestrians patronizing the variety of shops that once lined our historic avenue. With Morningside Cafe, we will be apart of restoring the excitement of patronizing small businesses along the E. Warren commercial corridor.  We will provide our patrons with nothing less than excellent customer service and the very best coffee money can buy in the city of Detroit. We look to create an atmosphere and space for all to enjoy, and most importantly we look to restore the pride of residents who reside within our communities of Cornerstone, EEV, and MorningSide!