Thank You For Helping Us Open SunBean Coffee Shop!

Hi! (Please note that we have opened our coffee shop--THANK YOU!--and are no longer accepting donations. We would, however, love to serve you your favorite coffee in the coffee shop! www.sunbeancoffeemn.com)

We are Fred & Annie DuBose, the dynamic husband and wife team behind SunBean Coffee Shop. Our mission is to provide our customers with the highest quality coffee while fostering a warm, welcoming, and inclusive atmosphere that promotes a sense of well-being and community. We are committed to promoting sustainable and responsible business practices, and to being transparent and honest in all our operations. Our goal is to continuously innovate and improve, and to be a positive force for wellbeing in our community.

About SunBean Coffee Shop

SunBean is a coffee shop that is about more than just great coffee. Our business will draw people together and boost our collective energy and mental health. It will help ensure a thriving local economy. Through our commitment to equity and diversity, we will provide good job training & mentorship for youth with barriers to employment, support just wages & conditions for coffee farmers, and partner with BIPOC- and women-owned food vendors.

Starting in Jan/Feb 2024, SunBean will be your new happy place, a coffee shop committed to providing you with an exceptional experience. Sit at our signature SunBar, where the joy of sunshine and the pleasure of coffee unite to create an uplifting ambiance. Our friendly baristas are always here to brighten your day with delicious coffee drinks and other beverages designed to boost your mood and support good mental health. We will sell specialty coffee from the best roasters in the industry, highlighting other black- and women-owned businesses. We are excited to also offer mood- and health-boosting drinks such as adaptogens, mushroom coffee, and superfood lattes.

With SunBean, we're not just creating a coffee shop; we're creating community. That's why we're committed to giving back to the community by donating 3% of our profits to support accessible and affordable mental health care.

For more info about SunBean Coffee, visit www.sunbeancoffeemn.com.

About the Owners

We are passionate about making an impact in our community and believe in the power of coffee, sunshine, and a friendly smile. It has been Fred’s life's dream to open a coffee shop that serves as a gathering place where people can connect and get a boost of energy and good vibes before heading back out into the world.

We have multiple years of experience in the food industry, in working to make an impact in our community, and in running our own business. Fred has worked as a barista at two different coffee shops and is currently doing an apprenticeship at another mission-based, black-owned coffee shop in the Twin Cities.

Fred also has extensive experience managing programs and people. During his tenure at the Minneapolis Park Board, he managed multiple park facilities and ran numerous successful youth programs. We plan to tap into his passion for working with young people by hiring local teens through MPRB’s Teen TeamWorks, Connections to Independence, and/or Minneapolis’s Step Up programs.

Annie is passionate about social entrepreneurship. She has run her own successful business as a life and health coach for over three years, managing all aspects of the business while coaching clients in individual and group settings, as well as leading numerous international retreats. In addition, Annie has started a nonprofit that brought the benefits of competitive rowing to high school girls in North Minneapolis. She successfully managed the nonprofit as Executive Director for over five years.

We decided in March 2023 to go all-in on opening a brick-and-mortar coffee shop, and have never looked back. Although we knew there was much that we “didn’t know we didn’t know,” as soon as we decided to fully commit to making this vision a reality, everything started to fall into place. We had a deep sense of peace in our decision, a deep knowing that this is what we are meant to be doing, and an excitement to master both the barista and business skills it will take to make our business a success.

Our Space

We are thrilled to have found a great home in South Minneapolis in which to open SunBean. We are excited to become the local neighborhood “happy place” in the Standish-Ericsson neighborhood of South Minneapolis. We will be just a few blocks from Lake Hiawatha, Minnehaha Creek & Minnehaha Falls, on the intersection of E 46th Street and 34th Avenue South. CLICK HERE to see our location on a map.

The space has been empty for quite a while, and we are breathing new life and energy into it. We are working with an architect, contractor, and the building owners to completely renovate the space and make sure it is exactly how we envision SunBean (not to mention up to code and ADA compliant!).

When you walk into SunBean, it will feel like walking into a warm, sunny day, even on the gloomiest of Minnesota winter days. You can bask in the light from the sun therapy lamps at our signature SunBar or grab a table in the back to chat with a friend. In the summer, we plan to have outdoor seating both on the patio out back and at the sidewalk cafe in front of the shop.

What We've Done & What We Need

Since March 2023, we have been working on starting SunBean. We are working with an amazing nonprofit, NextStage, which supports first-time entrepreneurs with business consulting and limited financing. We have been spending late nights and early mornings researching, working on our business plan, selecting the perfect site, brushing up on our barista skills, testing menu items, spreading the word, and much more. We are getting so close we can almost smell the coffee brewing, but we need your support to help us get across that finish line to the grand opening.

Our start-up costs will be around $185,000. Through hard work, faith, and the right connections, we are almost there! As a family, we are all in on this business. With our own personal contribution, plus private financing from NextStage, and a matching loan from the City of Minneapolis, we have raised $170,000. (We have to pinch ourselves about this sometimes!)

We are turning to you, our community, for support in closing the $15,000 gap to reach our financing goal. We have launched this GoFundMe campaign to raise the remaining funds that will contribute to the successful opening of SunBean Coffee Shop in the fall of 2023.

This is where you come in, SunRay!

How You Can Help

Your contribution, no matter the size, will play a significant role in making SunBean Coffee Shop a reality. We invite you to join us in creating a local community spot in South Minneapolis that will draw people together and boost our collective energy and mental health. Contributing will do more than help SunBean open; it will support a thriving local economy, brighten the day of someone who needs a boost, create good jobs for youth with barriers to employment, support just wages & conditions for coffee farmers, support other local BIPOC- and women-owned businesses, and help provide accessible and affordable mental health care in our community.

In short, we envision SunBean as a small coffee shop with the power to make a huge impact in our community. We know you want it to exist as much as we do, and we appreciate you helping make our vision a reality!

Other Ways You Can Help

Please help us share our message! We would appreciate it if you share this project with your friends, families, and colleagues. You can use the share tools on this page to post this to all your favorite Social Networking sites.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and considering a contribution to our crowdfunding campaign. Your support means everything to us and will make a lasting impact on the success of SunBean Coffee Shop.

With heartfelt gratitude,

Fred & Annie DuBose