The ball keeps moving for Eurasia Coffee and Tea LLC – as one project is completed, another is on the horizon.
The company started out as a coffee wholesaler with a twist: 10 percent of sales are donated to social justice causes or nonprofit organizations throughout Europe and Asia. Now, with the philanthropic mission still at its core, Eurasia Coffee features a cafe, fireside gallery, boutique hotel and, coming soon, its very own roaster.
Justin and Karen Beiler own Eurasia Coffee, which was founded in 2010. Both grew up in foreign countries with missionary parents – Justin in Austria and Karen in Japan – and both have degrees in international business. The idea for Eurasia Coffee developed when Justin, who had owned a contracting company, was talking to his father about ways they could promote U.S. missions.
“It was really to take the missions stories that are happening in the communities that are being served by missionaries around the world and use coffee to tell the story of what they’re doing,” Justin says.
He began developing a business plan to sell coffee beans wholesale to churches and businesses. Justin began a partnership with a single-origin coffee bean roaster in Michigan to acquire the beans, and working out of a space in Eurasia Community’s office on Boonville Avenue, Eurasia Coffee and Tea launched.
“We were just purchasing and then adding our markup to it and rebranding and packaging,” Justin says. “From the beginning we were marketers and sellers.”
Eurasia Coffee opened its first cafe in 2012 in AG headquarters – a small booth in comparison to Commercial Street.
The build-out
About 18 months in, Justin purchased and began renovations on a Commercial Street building, which currently houses the cafe. His uncle Sam Beiler, who formerly owned the Auntie Anne’s pretzel company, invested $1.5 million to finance the purchase, renovations and furnishing of the building. The husband-and-wife business partners are currently in a lease-to-own agreement with Sam. The cafe is simple – high ceilings, big windows, and wood floors and booths. It has an airy and organic feel, with potted plants and white walls.
“That was something that [came] with the trends in coffee and how fast things change and just being able to have a model store to show people what you’re working with,” Justin says of adding retail. “The Commercial Street location followed just out of the need for having that flagship location.”
Hotel, gallery and roasting
In April 2015, Eurasia Coffee and Tea opened their store on Commercial Street and began serving a variety of drinks and food. Karen estimated $500,000 in revenue was generated in 2016.
The boutique hotel, Eurasia’s latest addition, had its grand opening in July. It is located on the second floor of Eurasia and has six rooms available for booking. They have had guests from Springfield, San Francisco, New York City and even Ukraine. Karen says their target audience is young professionals.
“A couple of our first guests were maybe a different age bracket, came in and were like, ‘We need black-out blinds. We need it dark.’ So that’s the challenge of running a business and excitement of it,” Justin says. “You’re never truly done.”
Prices range from $125 to $155 per night. The hotel is the only aspect of the business that does not donate 10 percent of sales to an organization. From Jan. 5-8, all the rooms were booked, according to CultureCStreet.com.
Left of the cafe resides Eurasia’s Fireside Gallery. Its original purpose was to showcase organizations the company was supporting, but when Justin and Karen got busy working on the boutique hotel, those plans went on the back burner. Customers began asking to rent the space, and now it’s available for community gatherings. The gallery is rented six to eight times a month. It can be rented for $50 an hour, a half day for $150 or a full day for $250.
“Now, it is something that we really look at as a key revenue stream,” Justin says.
Justin and Karen are preparing for their next new project: an in-house roaster. They hope to have the $20,000 roaster installed early this year and eventually transition into roasting all their own beans.
Wholesale is still Eurasia’s biggest revenue source, accounting for over half. Between 150 and 200 churches and businesses serve Eurasia’s coffee in the United States. Among them is North Point and Courageous churches in Springfield; Northiron Church in Ishpeming, Michigan; and Steel City Church in Lackawanna, New York.
Stephanie Anderson, North Point Church’s project specialist, says about 100 gallons of Eurasia coffee is consumed each weekend at the Norton campus alone.
“We’re going to serve coffee no matter what, so we like to support a coffee company that’s more than just a business,” Anderson says. “What they’re doing gives back to people around the world, people in our local community.”
During the years, Eurasia has identified a dozen organizations to support through coffee sales, and Karen says a different group is selected each quarter within the rotation.
“We don’t want to just throw money at them and walk away,” Justin adds.
One year, Eurasia supported Deepika Girls’ Home, an organization that cares for girls born into brothels in India. Eurasia raised about $2,000 for Deepika to build a garden in order to create a sustainable way to provide food for the rescued girls.
“We went and visited them a few years after and they made us lunch with all the vegetables they had picked from the garden,” Karen says. “It was really cool.”
