Rockford’s locally-owned coffee shops are collaborating to lift each other up
By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Locally-owned coffee shops from downtown Rockford to The Bricks in Cherry Valley are collaborating to celebrate their specialties and brew up more business.
Six of the city’s coffee shops are partnering for the new Rockford Coffee Crawl, which will happen on Saturday, Sept. 28. That’s the day before National Coffee Day.
“The whole point of it is to lift up coffee in our region in honor of National Coffee Day and to collaborate to drive traffic to each of our local businesses,” said Matthew Simpson of Eight Fifteen Capital, the local real estate group that owns Wired Cafe, 414 E. State St.
The new event celebrating independently owned coffee shops comes on the heels of an announcement that multinational chain Starbucks is coming to downtown. Plans for collaboration among local coffee shops were starting to take shape before the Starbucks announcement, but the addition of a national retailer to a downtown market that already has four coffee shops gave new energy to the effort.
“This is just us connecting with each other to lift up what we do that’s different,” Simpson said. “It’s not about Starbucks, it’s about us.”
Simpson said collaborating with other shops has been one of Wired’s goals since Eight Fifteen Capital bought the business at the start of the year.
He had locked in a date for multiple shops to meet and discuss collaboration plans. Then, the Friday before Labor Day weekend, Urban Equity Properties announced plans to bring Starbucks to State and Main streets by late November.
The announcement was hailed as a good sign for downtown’s economy that a national retailer was interested in moving in, but it was rebuked by locals who don’t want to see local businesses contend with a new competitor.
Social media commentary after the announcement largely centered on people calling for residents to support their local shops.
“There’s something that we have that’s very special that Starbucks doesn’t have — and that’s each other, our customers and our community,” Simpson said. “We need to come together to be able to survive as local businesses.”
Pete DuFoe, who owns Inzombia Coffee, said when Simpson approached him about a potential coffee crawl he was already on a mission to figure out what Inzombia could do to make the community go “hell yeah,” he said. He said the Starbucks announcement added purpose to why he became a coffee shop owner.
“We want to attract more people. We want the community to come together and build connection through the local coffee shops,” DuFoe said. “This event will give people the opportunity to learn the different types coffee shops this city has to offer. Not one of us are the same. But we all have the same goal.”
DuFoe and Simpson both said the event will not be a one-time thing. They plan to do more and go bigger.
“Each of us has something very special,” Simpson said. “This is just the first step in collaboration.”
Rockford Coffee Crawl
When: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28
Where:
- Wired Cafe, 414 E. State St., Rockford
- Inzombia Coffee, 306 E. State St., Rockford and inside the Education Resource Center at Rock Valley College, 3301 N. Mulford Road
- Rockford Roasting Co., 416 S. Main St., Rockford
- Katie’s Cup, 502 Seventh St., Rockford
- My Cafe Amore, 125 E. State St., suite E, Cherry Valley
- Meg’s Daily Grind, 1141 N. Alpine Road and 3879 N. Perryville Road, Rockford
More info: 815CoffeeCrawl
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas
