When the coronavirus pandemic hit, two industries seemed especially affected: hospitality, which saw millions of Americans laid off and small business owners struggling to adapt, and healthcare, which was overwhelmed by dangers, lack of supplies and flat-out exhaustion. Nathan Tourtelotte, co-owner of Rose Park Roasters in Long Beach, immediately started thinking about how the two related to each other.
“Running a coffee shop is technically an essential business but it seems like a sort of lightweight version of essential,” Tourtelotte said. “As things escalated in the first couple weeks of the crisis, we knew we wanted to stay open—but only if we could do it safely, if our employees wanted or needed to keep working, and if we could find a way to use coffee to meet a more essential need than simply providing our everyday offerings.”
It was then that it occurred to Tourtelotte that hospital workers, becoming increasingly exhausted as the pandemic grew, were likely in dire need of caffeine—and even more, deserved a better quality form of it as a simple way of saying a small thank you.
“It’s really about giving them a moment of respite, which is what makes really good food or drinks so powerful to us and is why we’re in this business in the first place,” Tourtelotte said. “Coffee is the one thing we do exceedingly well and the thing we have poured our hearts and minds into for decades now. It is simply the thing we have to offer.”
In order to assure hospitals that the coffee would be free and provide 100% of their coffee needs while also being able to pay his staff, Tourtelotte created a Go Fund Me page that has been funding the operation week-by-week.
The result? More than 3,200 cups of locally roasted coffee handed to workers at St. Mary’s, the VA and Memorial Care hospitals in the past two weeks.
“We have enough funding to continue for about another week currently with current funding, which means another 1,500 cups or so will go out,” Tourtelotte said. “We’d love to be able to continue beyond that if we can, and we’ve been pursuing donations from coffee importers and other sources to help bring the cost down and stretch those dollars.”
Tourtelotte is hoping the support continues and even expands, as he would also like to eventually provide pastries in addition to coffee.
“We’re hoping that the simple gift of coffee can convey a little bit of how grateful we all are to them for going to work despite the risks, and the inadequacy of our preparedness, and the constant bleak outlook they are confronted by day in and day out,” Tourtelotte said. “But in all honesty, it’s not really about the coffee. It’s about letting people know that we see them, that their Long Beach neighbors see them and care about them, that we’re thinking about them and the challenges they are facing right now.”