Bridge City Coffee, the third new Greenville coffee shop to be announced in the last month, won’t be just your regular coffee stop once it opens later this fall in the 2,000-square-foot former Cuban restaurant space at 1520 Wade Hampton Blvd.
It will certainly have the solution to your caffeine needs, especially with roasting done on-site, and plenty of seating. It will also provide a much-needed drive-thru window for specialty coffee on a stretch of Wade Hampton that doesn’t have any such option.
But aside from that, it’s the employment model that will really set it apart.
Co-owned by Greg Ward and Jon Quigg, Bridge City Coffee will employ underprivileged teens and adults who will undergo 12 months of training in more than just working a coffee counter. They’ll learn about their strengths and weaknesses, what types of careers fit within those parameters, and how they can apply their new-found skills and qualifications outside of the coffee shop.
Especially unusual is that while many restaurants are struggling with staff retention and looking for solutions, Bridge City Coffee will be doing the exact opposite. The end-goal is to partner with other local employers and place the trainees in other jobs once they’ve completed their training.
“We want to equip people who often have been overlooked,” Ward says.
Bridge City will also set up a fund for employees that will be managed by an independent third party to assist them with financial needs they may have as they move on from the coffee shop, such as buying a computer or other items they may need for their new jobs.
Additionally, they’re using the relational model of sourcing by partnering with specific coffee growers and farmers who would benefit from Bridge City’s support beyond paying a fair price. One such example is a coffee farm in Rwanda run by women, many of whom were refugees from the Rwandan genocide. They are building a community center that their coffee buyers are helping to fund.
These models aren’t unique to Bridge City, but Ward is carrying them over from working in a leadership consulting role with two individual coffee concepts in Denver, Colorado, before moving to Greenville a year ago.
Purple Door Coffee in Denver employs previously homeless youth and takes them through a year-long curriculum to teach them job skills and help them with a resume. Also in Denver, Queen City Collective Coffee employs the relational sourcing model.
Ward, who still sits on the board for Purple Door, has brought both of those ideas together into one concept after he made the choice to leave the corporate world to spend more time with his family. His wife is from Greenville, so the choice to move to the Upstate wasn’t a difficult one.
Ward met his business partner, Quigg, through Dan Weidenbenner of Mill Community Ministries. Mill Community and local rehabilitation non-profit Jasmine Road are both exploring a partnership with Bridge City for its employment needs.
Quigg is on the coffee roasting side of the operation and spends his days in their current Anderson roasting facility to keep up with the demands of their wholesale accounts around the state. They also supply coffee to The Chocolate Moose on Main Street and have a tent at the TD Saturday Market.
