wonderland park

Earlier this week, when I slipped through the front doors of the new Peace Coffee shop in Longfellow, I had to stop for a moment to take it all in. Despite the fact that I had come on what was only the third day of their “soft” opening, the place had that wonderful feeling of having been there for a long time. My gaze flitted from the beautiful intricate tile floor at the entrance, to the marquis lights on the rough hewn menu board, to the tree mural complete with a sweet little hidden bird nest, to the giant, and I mean GIANT, disco ball and all I could think was Man, this place is cool! Cheery sounds of whirring and clinking drifted from the big u-shaped coffee bar and sun streamed through vast windows, casting swaths of light over people chatting or sitting with their laptops, sipping coffee and looking contented as cats.

When I heard that Minneapolis-based Peace Coffee would be opening their own coffee shop this fall, my first reaction was not overly enthusiastic. Apart from a select few, coffee shops are not known to be hugely profitable, and I feared this new venture would pull resources from one of my favorite local companies and drag it down. Peace Coffee has been growing its fair trade, organic, bike-delivered, coffee bean business for years. Why risk all that the company has worked for rather than simply add new accounts and products to their already successful model? When I got the chance to speak with Lee Wallace, Peace Coffee's CEO ("Queen Bean" on her business cards), it all made sense.

"The new coffee shop allows us to prepare our coffee the way we envision it when it comes out of the roaster," Lee tells me, "most roasters know roasting but not about being a barista, and most baristas don't know much about roasting."