It was all a dream

Well, that’s the storybook way to look at it. We were actually trying to figure out what to do next after going through an unexpected layoff and an unexpected work injury back-to-back. With the 3 kids, 2 cars and a mortgage, the journey to the future was unclear but a long conversation driving through the mountains of Utah and Eastern Oregon after the Thanksgiving holiday led us to this simple but exciting idea: Open a coffee shop that is outdoorsy (easy enough) with a social goal of getting diverse groups in nature (not so easy). But how?

The adventure

We didn’t have much. What little we did have wasn’t going to be enough either. So in May of 2019, we launched a go fund me and wouldn’t you know it, we raised 10 grand in less than a month. People were rooting for us! By this time, we had decided we would roast our coffee, using campfire as a heat source (whaaa?) and we knew the social mission was important. If for nothing else, we love camping and being out in nature, exploring campgrounds and parks everywhere we can and we wanted to see more diversity out there but understood the hurdles in front of many people be it financial or cultural or both.

Anyhow, we signed our lease and that’s when the long march to the mountain top became really bumpy. That saying “anything that can go wrong, will” was most fitting for our buildout of the Campfire Coffee shop. Every issue you could imagine, we faced it. What should’ve been a 2 month job turned into 9 but determined and focused we marched ahead.

The mountain top

As if construction issues weren’t enough, COVID-19 took over the planet right as we were finally coming to a point of opening. We got our first shop open August 17th 2020 in Tacoma and have since been having a blast! Stay tuned to our social media updates (@welovecampfire) and see all the goodness that is happening.