July 31st, 2008
Posted by Alex Payson at 10:34 am
Blue State Coffee at 300 Thayer Street was awarded the “Best Coffee with a Conscience” award this year by RI Monthly! We are honored to have been recognized. In particular we are happy that our efforts to provide a cup of coffee that not only does no harm to the environment, but actually can improve the world a tiny bit have not gone unnoticed.
Thank you to all of our loyal customers, and welcome to our first-time visitors!
Posted in General news, Blue State Coffee news, BSC in the press, Stores, Providence/Thayer St Store | 
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July 21st, 2008
Posted by Alex Payson at 1:57 pm
Thanks to the Providence Business Journal for writing this great article about us:
Blue State patrons drink liberally
By Ted Nesi _PBN Staff Writer
Like millions of other Democrats, Drew Reuben was disappointed when Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry lost the 2004 presidential election. But, unlike most of Kerry’s unhappy supporters, Reuben turned his disappointment into action – and a successful business plan.
Reuben and his father, Marshall, are the founders of Blue State Coffee, a Thayer Street café with a novel twist – 10 percent of the company’s profits are donated to liberal causes. Since opening its doors a year ago, Blue State Coffee has already donated $50,000 to a variety of local and national groups, including Providence Summerbridge and People for the American Way.
Blue State Coffee opened in September 2006 as a Web-only operation, with the Thayer Street shop following in July 2007. Although the Web site has been slow to take off, the café was an immediate hit with the students and workers around Brown University.
When you walk into Blue State, there’s no question you’re in an establishment that has a point of view, with its “Bush’s Last Day” merchandise and other liberal-minded signs. But although patrons may come for the causes, they stay for the coffee, according to Alex Payson, Blue State’s general manager.
“It’s good coffee that supports great causes,” said Payson, a 27-year-old Brown graduate. “Quality is always paramount. Without that, we’re an empty store with sad faces around.”
Reuben agreed. “If we can’t make a profit – if the business isn’t viable – we can’t do any good for the world,” he said.
Reuben, a Connecticut native, came up with the idea for Blue State Coffee shortly after the election, when he was still a 16-year-old high school sophomore. “I’ve always been thinking outside the box,” he said.
As Reuben tells it, he and his father were talking politics on a coffee run to Dunkin Donuts, when Drew looked at the menu and began to think: “Can’t we channel that [money] into the causes we’re talking about and care about?”
Despite their lack of a business background, Reuben’s attorney father, Marshall, was game. That night, the pair came up with a slogan – “Drink liberally” – and soon brought on board a like-minded family. The group dove into the project, researching coffees and marketing plans, and eventually opened the Blue State Coffee Web site.
They also began scouting locations for the first café, quickly settling on Providence.
“We stepped foot on Thayer Street, and it’s the ideal location for a coffee shop like this,” said Reuben. “We spent time trying to find the right location – we looked at Northampton, Cambridge, New Haven – and we never found a spot quite like Thayer Street.”
Reuben, who just finished his freshman year as a political science student at Yale and is currently an intern for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said it was important to create the right atmosphere in the café. He wanted it to feel eclectic and fun, but also clean and comfortable.
“We wanted to be very certain we didn’t look like a cookie-cutter Starbucks store,” he said, “but we wanted to make sure we were clean, because some places were dirty during my research, and that’s not fun.”
As befits a business that wears its social mission on its sleeve, Blue State Coffee buys and sells organic, fair-trade, and locally made products. “We’re trying to be the ‘greenest’ coffee shop in the bluest state,” Payson said, laughing.
The company’s coffee beans are supplied by New Harvest Coffee Roasters, a Pawtucket company that specializes in high-quality, small-batch roasts. Since New Harvest is only a city away, the coffee beans are still warm when they get delivered to Blue State.
The company also uses cups that are compostable and biodegradable, and buys electricity from People’s Power and Light, which supports alternative energy.
Blue State also supports local causes. Each quarter, patrons vote for which organizations they think should receive the company’s contributions.
The company recently signed a lease to open a second café in New Haven. Reuben hopes the new location will open its doors by the fall – just before the November election. Eventually, he would like to see Blue State Coffee stores throughout New England.
So, if you drink enough Blue State java, do you become more liberal?
Reuben and Payson won’t go that far. But there’s anecdotal evidence that may be the case – the week before he left the Republican Party to become an independent, former Sen. Lincoln Chafee made his first visit to Blue State Coffee, Payson said with a chuckle. •
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July 1st, 2008
Posted by Alex Payson at 9:34 am
A few days ago we sent out the following press release.
If you would like to learn more or have questions please contact us at alex@bluestatecoffee.com.
WIND-POWERED LATTES COME IN COMPOSTABLE CUPS
AT BLUE STATE COFFEE
Blue State Coffee, a socially responsible coffee company offering freshly roasted organic and Fair TradeTM coffee now offsets all its electricity use with 100% wind power. The café has also completed a successful experiment to test whether its coffee cups and other waste are commercially compostable, on its way to its goal of running a “zero-waste” business.
“We pay extra for 100% wind power through People’s Power & Light—but it turns out to be only the cost of one latte per day,” said Blue State Coffee Manager, Alex Payson. “If one more person comes into the shop because we’re green, it’s worth it.”
Being green also pleases the core market of the Thayer Street café, which markets itself (as its name suggests) as a progressive-friendly hot spot. The café promotes progressive politics through events at the coffee shop, donations to causes (determined by the votes of customers), and a commitment to Fair Trade and environmental progress.
“We’re thrilled that Blue State Coffee has chosen our 100% wind green power product for the café,” said People’s Power & Light spokesperson, Karina Lutz. “Blue State understands and promotes our mission to make energy sustainable and affordable in Rhode Island—so it makes sense they’d choose a nonprofit source that is as local as possible, like New England Wind Fund.” Like People’s Power & Light’s other green power product, New England GreenStart, New England Wind Fund only supports renewable resources connected to the New England electric grid. New England GreenStart is available to residential and small commercial electricity users who pay their own bills. But for larger electricity users and those who don’t pay their own bills, such as renters like Blue State, New England Wind Fund is the solution.
Brown University students, under the tutelage of Kurt Teichert, Lecturer and Manager of Environmental Stewardship Initiatives at Brown University, designed a zero-waste program for Blue State Coffee. Part of the plan is to phase in all compostable and biodegradable paper goods, such as the Eco Hot CupTM coffee cups from Eco-Products that the café currently uses. Composting is a way to turn food waste—such as coffee grounds and paper waste—back into humus, an essential component of healthy soil. “Composting is something everyone can do, and it’s almost as easy as signing up for green power,” said Teichert.
Working with RI’s Earth Care Farm, Blue State conducted a composting experiment—and found the paper products lived up to their promise: they can be made into a soil amendment suitable for organic farming. Once he finds a source for compostable cup lids, Payson intends to compost all the café’s waste. “Then Blue State Coffee will be the greenest café in the bluest state!” said Lutz.
“They are environmentally progressive—not just minimizing negative environmental impacts, but maximizing positive impacts,” added Teichert.
Blue State Coffee, is located at 300 Thayer Street, Providence, and on the web at www.bluestatecoffee.com. New England Wind Fund is available through the web at www.newenglandwind.org. New England GreenStart is available through www.ripower.org.
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July 1st, 2008
Posted by Alex Payson at 6:30 am
Our spring quarter just ended and in a few days we will be announcing the voting and donation results from our 300 Thayer St. store.
For the next two weeks we will be collecting customer suggestions for our next local causes.
Stop by the store and drop your suggestion in the glass bin at the condiment bar (no purchase is required).
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