 Dave Crumbo, co-owner of Trestle Coffee Company on March Point Road, sees his business as both a local and international social venture. It’s a comfortable place to sit and drink a superb latté, but it also helps children around the world.
A longtime resident of Anacortes, Dave used to be part owner and CFO of Alaska Ocean Seafood, but that changed in April of 2008. “We sold the business on a Friday,” he says, “and on Monday I was on a plane to Zambia.”
Dave’s younger daughter is the one who initially wanted to go on the trip, organized by his family’s church, to complete her senior project at Anacortes High School. “I went along just to make sure she came home,” he says, “but once there I saw a great need and fell in love with the people.”
The need is twofold: the basic need to survive, and to learn how to earn a living. “They need to learn skills,” says Dave, “and to be given opportunities to use them.”
Dave, his wife Sharon, their daughter, and the rest of their group in Zambia helped build the Father’s Love Orphanage in Ndola.
When they came home a vision began to form, and Dave talked about it with his good friend Dan Mendum, proprietor of Coyote Coffee Roasters. Dave returned to Africa in November of that year, this time with Dan, to both Zambia and Kenya. In Kenya they visited the Dunga Orphanage in Kisima, founded by Anacortes residents.
“Everything reinforced the idea that I had the opportunity to help these people in a way they weren’t being helped,” says Dave, and he had the business proficiency to do so. “I decided to build a business that’s a social enterprise that could generate sustainable revenue for the cause,” he says – as opposed to fundraising, or “shaking a coffer” for donations.
A coffee shop was a natural choice. “About 82% of Americans drink coffee,” he says, “plus Sharon and I dated years ago in a really cool coffee place in Seattle” (The Last Exit on Brooklyn in the University District). Also, his friend Dan roasted coffee, and coincidentally the café in Dan’s building, a separate business from his attached roasting operation, came up for sale.
Dave and Sharon bought the café and opened in June of 2009. They changed the name of their new business to Trestle Coffee Company.
“We wanted the name to represent what we’re doing – we’re trying to be a support structure for these kids – and we wanted it to locate us in town.” They are not far from the trestle that crosses Fidalgo Bay.
Profits from Trestle Coffee Company will aid poor, homeless, and orphaned children around the world, providing them with food, medical care, and education. Dave expects that they’ll be making a profit by the end of the year.
But already his mission is being realized. He just returned from his 3rd trip to Africa, this one to Kenya with his entire family. They visited 2 coffee farms, but, more importantly, the urgency of their mission was reinforced.  They visited the In Step Foundation’s Rehema Ministries orphanage in Kitale, which houses 81 children, 60 of them under the age of 3, many of whom were abandoned. One infant was rescued from an outhouse, where he was born and left to die.
In Kitale, Dave’s son-in-law, a mechanical engineer, designed a passive solar food dehydrator that he, Dave, and Dave’s son built. Now the limited food supplies at the orphanage will last longer.
Schoolteachers at the orphanage were instructing the children by rote. Dave’s older daughter, a teacher herself, trained them how to use more effective teaching methods, while other women helped in the classroom.
In the capital city of Nairobi, Dave and his family worked in the Mathare slum, one of the largest slums in Africa. It is estimated that 300,000 to 500,000 people live in the 2-square mile area, but the slum is so vast and congested that accurate statistics are almost impossible to approximate.
“We met with social workers, visited AIDS hospices, and people’s homes,” says Dave. “It was pretty intense. There was a sea of homes with tin walls, tin roofs, no plumbing or power or windows. Sewage was running down the street. Very few people had hope.”
But a few did. One was a woman named Enis, who eked out a living selling jewelry and purses that she made, not able to support her family. Then a church sponsored her to attend dressmaking school. When Dave and his family visited her, paper dresses hung on the walls inside her shack, a testament to her diligent practice. But to ply her new trade, Enis needed a sewing machine. Dave personally bought her entire inventory of jewelry and purses for $60, with which she bought a sewing machine, and now she’s supporting her family.
“That was my first microfinance project,” he says proudly.
The ball is rolling. Another woman named Joan sells a few fruits and vegetables in a market outside her shack, but she doesn’t have the capital to buy produce wholesale. Dave will sell Enis’s merchandise at Trestle Coffee Company, and give the profits to Joan so she can buy more produce to sell.
Trestle’s business model is humanitarian through-and-through. At the end, profits go to a good cause. At the beginning, the coffee is treated conscientiously.
All coffees are fair trade or direct trade – purchased directly from the farmer – and they are certified organic or sustainably farmed. Many of the farms, most in Central and South America, are “bird certified,” meaning that no bird habitat has been adversely impacted.
Trestle Coffee Company and Coyote Coffee Roasters package their coffees separately, “But Dan and I work together on sourcing and blends,” says Dave. “We’re business partners in every way but legally.” They’re currently discussing possible ways to merge their businesses in the future.
The coffee at Trestle has an artisan touch not tasted in mass-produced coffees. It is roasted daily on-site, for 18 to 22 minutes per batch. Whether served as drinks or sold in bulk, it has been roasted 2 weeks before at most. “Green un-roasted coffee beans have a 2-year life,” explains Dave, “but once they’re roasted they’re only fresh for 30 days.” After that, the oils released by the roasting process turn the beans rancid.
 “Our coffees have a really nice flavor,” he says. Lattés and mochas are the most popular orders, but his personal favorite is the Nikko, with a bit of vanilla and orange syrups, orange zest, and cinnamon. Trestle Coffee Company employs 5 baristas. The café seats about 25 people, and has a meeting room upstairs and a drive-up window. The décor is warm and eclectic, with wooden furniture, some upholstered in retro fabric, a large world map on the wall, exposed wooden beams across the ceiling, and subdued tasteful lighting. Food is also served at the café – Sharon is in charge of that portion of the business. The menu includes 3 breakfast items (bagels, yogurt and panini, $1.75 - $4.50). Pastries and sweets include biscotti, cookies, and pieces of cake ($1.00 - $3.50), plus popular cinnamon rolls baked by Bogart’s in Oak Harbor ($3.50).
Wraps, cold sandwiches and panini sandwiches, including rotating daily specials, are available for lunch ($6.25 each). A panini sandwich with Muffuletta olive spread is priced at $6.75. In all seasons but summer, soups and soup/sandwich combos are also available.
Besides coffee, beverages include bottled water, sparkling mineral water, juices, soft drinks, and energy drinks ($1.00 - $2.25).
“Surprisingly, we get very few refinery people,” says Dave. “Most of our customers are ‘coffee snobs.’ We have a very high number of repeat customers. Our challenge is to get wider.”
Another challenge is that they are off the beaten path, but 2 billboards will be put up soon on either side of Highway 20, which should increase their business.
“But we’re next to our roaster,” says Dave. “That’s our identity. We want to have the best and freshest coffee in the county,” not to mention the most altruistic.
Trestle Coffee Company is located at 8152 South March Point Road, phone 299-8759. Hours: Monday through Friday 5:00 a.m. – 6:30 p.m., Saturday 6:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Closed Sunday.
For more information, visit trestlecoffee.com. The website is under construction, but should be completed soon. Teru Lundsten is a freelance writer and personal historian. To view more of her work and read about the services she provides, visit BriefLives.net.
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