Bridgehead Coffee, a renowned fair-trade coffeehouse chain, is a local favourite for the residents of Westboro and Hintonburg. The first company to offer consumers fairly-traded coffee in Canada has a special relationship with the Westboro neighbourhood. The first Bridgehead Coffeehouse opened at 362 Richmond Road in Westboro back on June 17, 2000. Gradually, it expanded to twenty outlets and now includes a line of organic teas and food products as well.

What makes Bridgehead unique is not just the fact that they provide high-quality coffees but also how warm and generous their team is. The staff makes an effort to engage with every customer and make a positive impact on their day. They love helping to create great memories over cups of coffee. “We wish to utilize every interaction as an opportunity to make someone’s day,” says Blair Amyotte, Director of Marketing and Brand at Bridgehead.

To make every experience worthwhile, they strive to ensure that everything they serve meets the highest standards. They go the extra mile, starting with meeting with the farmers responsible for growing the beans and plucking the tea leaves. Bridgehead gives the farmers a helping hand when they need it, including collaborating on environmental and sustainability policies. Blair says Bridgehead wants to eventually introduce their customers to these local farmers and show them where their coffee comes from.

The pandemic posed huge challenges to community-building and collaboration opportunities – the values Bridgehead is defined by. Due to travel restrictions, the team hasn’t been able to meet with their farmers over the past year, and they realized that some have been hit really hard. One farmer partner, for instance, wasn’t able to prepare enough harvest for commercial sale. Yet, Bridgehead still bought several bags to keep the partnership going. Although that coffee did not reach customers, the beans were turned into thank-you coffees for the staff, along with a note telling the story of the farmer who grew them.

Bridgehead also believes in building community close to home. On March 15th, 2020, when the first positive case of COVID-19 had just been identified and assessment centers were preparing to be opened, the Bridgehead team planned a special surprise for the staff. The team visited Assessment Centre with coffee for all the nurses and other staff. They were greeted with tears of joy and gratitude and an unforgettable heartwarming response. Touched by the reaction, Bridgehead has delivered coffees to those frontline workers every single day since then. They have also offered their thank you coffees to different local health care worker groups including The Ottawa Hospital, CHEO, EORLA and community health clinics like Centretown Community Health Clinic – to name a few.

These stories exemplify the extraordinariness of Bridgehead’s community service initiatives. Bridgehead knows the impact that kindness can make on someone’s day – so they work hard to delight their customers, support the farmers, rewarding their employees, and celebrate the healthcare workers who are protecting our community.

About Discover Local

Discover Local is an exclusive program for our residents, created to better acquaint them with their neighbourhood and the many local businesses and services therein. It’s all about discovering what makes their local community so vibrant, inspiring, and livable. From cafes and restaurants to retailers, gyms and beyond, we invite you to discover local – there’s a whole neighbourhood waiting to be discovered!

The post Westboro’s Bridgehead Coffee nourishes the community with its caring spirit – and its amazing coffee appeared first on Westboro 2 (Scott Street) Blog.

Ottawans love their coffee, there’s no doubt about that – and there’s certainly a lot of great places to grab a decent espresso. One of our favourites in Westboro is Equator Coffee Roasters.

The café’s general manager, Chris Petrie, explains, “We always prioritize making people feel welcome. You want to feel like you’re walking into somewhere familiar, whether it’s your first time or your five-thousandth time. I wanted it to be a place where you’re going to make friends with someone on any given day that you’re in there.”

It’s that spirit of community – along with a rotating selection of truly unique coffee beans including their signature best-seller, Freakin’ Good Coffee, as well as a curated selection of locally produced food and beer – that has attracted local coffee aficionados since the café opened in 2014.

At that time, Equator had already established itself as one of Ottawa’s premier coffee roasters after its founders Craig and Amber Hall had built up a reputation selling beans at local farmers markets. Offering a quality product was only half of the equation, however, and the goal behind Equator was to make a positive impact globally and locally.

Today, Equator is a member of Cooperative Coffees, a collective of 23 North American roasters that operate under the principles of fair trade – essentially working directly and transparently with independent organic coffee producers in developing countries, so that the producers aren’t taken advantage of and are paid fairly for their hard work (all the while benefitting the surrounding communities as well).

The result is an inspiring brew of environmental sustainability, stronger communities, and, unsurprisingly, excellent coffee – a central draw to the Westboro café for coffee lovers on the lookout for one-of-a-kind, single-origin beans and other unusual varieties from ‘micro lots’ such as a rare Peruvian bean (“We only have 12 bags for Westboro,” Petrie says).

Petrie explains that his café is seeing more and more interest in unique coffee, especially now that everyone is spending far more time at home and online. “We’ve been trying to do fun social media videos with information and advice,” adds Petrie. “I have a good relationship with a lot of our regular customers – they’ll text me or email me to pick my brain.”

For the curious who have yet to venture into Equator, Petrie has lots of helpful advice to share as well as some recommendations if you’re ready to level up your coffee game – at his café or in your own kitchen.

“I would say come in for the single-origin along with a bag of Freakin’ Good,” says Petrie, “so you can experience something completely different. I want to be people’s first choice for coffee in the neighbourhood, but if we can’t sit them down then we definitely want to help them do it better at home.”
 

About Westboro Discover Local

Discover Local is an exclusive program for our residents that introduces them to our neighbourhood and encourages them to “discover” the best places in our Westboro community. We are proud to have Equator Coffee Roasters as our Discover Local partner and excited to introduce a café that has been offering quality organic products since 1998 to Westboro Connection residents.

The post Westboro’s Equator Café is making a global impact appeared first on Westboro 2 (Scott Street) Blog.