Save Savvy House Coffee Bar (Rebuild-Relocate)

It is with heavy hearts that we make this announcement. Savvy House Coffee Bar will likely be closing its doors in the very near future. The COVID-19 shut downs and current state of the economy have substantially impacted our business to the extent that we have exhausted our resources. As our loyal customers know, Savvy House is a family-owned and operated business. We invested our own personal funds in order to bring the Savvy House vision to life. But before we even reached our first year in business, the pandemic hit and for approximately 13 months, we were forced to cease indoor dining. The Savvy House business model was not designed to be a take-out operation. The vision was to build a place in Elk Grove for a real coffee experience. We built Savvy House for the community, a non-chain coffee shop to bring a new vibe to Elk Grove. A place for our community to gather, make memories, showcase their talents, and share a great cup of coffee.

We are reaching out to you now in hopes that we can revive and rebuild Savvy House Coffee Bar in the near future and keep the legacy going... great coffee, community and creativity!

A personal note from the owner:

Most of you may have met me or know me already, Jamaar Anderson, but if you haven't, I am the owner of Savvy House Coffee Bar, a family-owned business built from ground up and located in the heart of Elk Grove!

Savvy House Coffee Bar started as a vision to bring creatives together in a place that felt safe for all people. With a background in independent local music, local soccer coaching, and the sales experience I've developed over time, I started a business plan to create a local coffee shop. We put the pieces together and took action to bring the vision to life.

We used all of our savings to start the business and get it off the ground. We quickly found out that we would need more capital to get the business rolling, which we found in loans and a few grants. And on March 31, 2019, the dream came alive as we opened our doors for business. The first few months flowed very well initially, but it is well known that the first year in business is always the hardest; so while we started to gain some traction, it wasn’t enough to allow us to build a safety net to combat the impending pandemic.

In a way, the pandemic gave us an opportunity to slow down and take a birds-eye view of the business to see where we could gain efficiency and cut costs. We had to get creative with marketing, adjust our menu and pricing, we began a breakfast brunch system, adjusted hours and were dedicated to keeping our staff employed.

We created an ongoing event during the pandemic called the Grassroots Empowerment Coalition, which was a free panel discussion to educate, inform, motivate and empower a community going through its first pandemic. Subjects included farming/sustainability, first-time home buying, the importance of voting, self-motivation, generational/transfer of wealth orated by local professionals in those fields.

We also created a celebration event held every other Friday during the pandemic called Cold Covid Nights, in hopes to bring positivity during such a dreary time. We booked a dj, had family games out and people brought their roller skates and would skate in the parking lot, vibing out to the music.

Unfortunately, over time, covid sickness, covid restrictions, covid recessions, and now inflation, our cafe has been hit really hard financially. There were some grants and government funding during the pandemic that were supposed to help small businesses, but we didn't qualify for a majority of them. The times when foot traffic would spike during the pandemic for us was when the trend was to support black-owned businesses during the George Floyd protests and again when the average person had stimulus checks. The spike in customers helped us tremendously, but it didn’t get us out of the red.

In order for Savvy House Coffee Bar to stay in the community, it will take a miracle from God and the support of the people! I am hopeful, faithful and believe the community wants us to stay, so we're not giving up without a fight!!!

Now that we have been through the worst the world can throw at us, we have plans to rebuild and revive Savvy House Coffee Bar to make it better than ever, but we are calling upon our Savvy Community to help us. Savvy House Coffee Bar is the community’s coffee shop. It has become more than a coffee shop over these 3.5 years, it is a gathering place, a platform for artists/new businesses needing pop up space, campaign trails and more. And with your help, we will be doing it for more years to come.

All funds received will be put towards rebuilding Savvy House Coffee Bar either in the current location or in a new location within Elk Grove; so that we may continue to serve our community. From every part of our hearts, we appreciate everyone who has walked through the doors and especially to those who have made SHCB their home away from home.

Cheers!

Donor Tiers:

Vishnu $1-50

Devi $51-250

Surya $251-1,000

Shiva $1,001-5000

Ganesha $5,000 - +