Reopen Gypsy Souls Coffeehouse: Your Help Needed

Hello. We are a local, family-owned business with a coffee shop and coffee roastery in St. Petersburg, Florida. We have just been hit by two back-to-back hurricanes -- Helene and Milton. With Helene, we lost power and had to throw out all of the food and milks. We couldn't bring our staff back to work until power was restored and we had food to sell. So, after power was restored, we limped along and were getting back to "normal" when Milton did much worse damage.

Not only did we lose power, internet, and cell phone service, but we also lost the roof of the building by the roaster area. Water and debris came into the building from the hole in the roof and soaked supplies, green coffee, the roaster, the sealer, and much more. Water dripped down the sides of the walls from the roof area. We had water covering the floor over half of the building. And, we once again had to throw out all of the food and the milks. This time, however, because of the wind and rain damage, we also had to throw out most of the cups, napkins, deli paper, other paper products, paperwork, and much more. And we don't have the funds to reopen yet.

I'm Dena, the "mom" of Gypsy Souls Coffeehouse and Gypsy Beans Coffee Roasters. I'm also Ryan's mom and business partner along with my husband, Ned. Ned and I are supposed to be retired, but because of the pandemic, we have been working alongside Ryan for all these years trying to save our businesses. We opened this shop and roastery in 2018, so Ryan could roast our coffee. And he has become a master coffee roaster! We were only open for 18 months before Covid hit.

We know we have it better than many other businesses that were completely destroyed. But we need help to reopen. We have staff to employ, payroll to meet, rent, utilities, and other bills to pay, and green coffee beans to buy. We have to buy all those supplies again (just did this after Hurricane Helene and lost everything again), and we have to restart the shop, for both our staff and our customers. Our customers miss getting their coffee and food. They miss having a safe spot to work or visit with friends, or get something good to eat and drink. They miss having our great staff make their coffees and food. And I'm sure they miss my chicken salad and Yugoslavian walnut roll and coffee cake and muffins and blueberry pound cake.

This was Ryan's dream to roast coffee and ensure that our customers have the best coffee they can find in our area. And our coffee is great! We want to help Ryan get the shop going again and get him roasting coffee again. We want to be able to employ our staff again, so they can live. We want our customers to be able to have their coffees and food. We're all like one big family. If you can help us, so that we can open again, we would be so grateful.