BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Over the past two years, a pair of Starke congregations have opened cafes that have now flourished into businesses that serve around 100 daily.
Fresh Start Cafe
Starke’s First Baptist Church offers coffee and breakfast food to attendees of its morning services in the church’s Fresh Start Café.
The coffee house seats around 20.
Pam Davis said she and fellow First Baptist member and Keystone Heights dentist Tracy Starling worked on the idea as new pastor Matthew Page arrived around Easter 2022.
“We had this building, and it wasn’t being used for anything, so we were like, let’s open it for coffee on Easter and do breakfast and try something new to get some young people into the church,” recalled Davis. “And two years later, here we are running it every week.”
Davis said church members rotate bringing in homemade breakfast items, lemonade, water, and ice weekly.
“We’ll probably push through 100 people here on Sunday mornings,” Davis said.
She added that residents of the nearby Magnolia Hotel sometimes come over for a beverage and snack.
“We’re open to whoever wants to come and sit down and enjoy,” she said. “It’s free.”
The café is in the Ben P. Bryant Youth Building, undergoing renovations.
“It had just been neglected,” Davis said of the structure. “When we had those last bands of hurricanes, they did a lot of damage to the roof, so we had tons of water damage.”
Davis said the youth worship area has recently been overhauled, and the parking lot between the church and the Woman’s Club, facing Jefferson Street, will eventually be converted into a recreation courtyard with basketball and volleyball courts.
The upstairs area of what used to be Florida National Bank houses breakout rooms.
Davis said that the building also hosts young adult and college outreach ministries in addition to the congregation’s youth program.
Salt and Light Fusion
Around the same time First Baptist launched Fresh Start Cafe, another Starke congregation started using coffee as a fellowship and outreach ministry.
Mike and Debbie Smith joined Fusion Family Ministries almost six years ago. The Assemblies of God congregation hosted Providence Christian Academy for one year and is near the Bradford County Fairgrounds.
Debbie said that around four years ago, she and her husband were reading the book “Circle Maker.”
“It’s basically a book telling you to dream big because we serve a big God,” she recalled.
Debbie added that from that book, she and Mike developed a vision of creating a safe place where Christians of various denominations could fellowship.
“We prayed about it, and the church got on board with it,” she said.
When the Christian school, needing more space, moved on to its own location, the vacant square footage allowed the congregation to set up the café.
“We don’t pay rent on this. We already had the building,” Debbie continued. “God provided a lot of people to help us put it all together.”
Mike said the church assembled the coffee house piecemeal, beginning in September 2021, with a $600 espresso machine to test the concept’s viability.
He added that the total investment in the operation is around $25,000, including a bigger $6,000 espresso machine.
The café is open to church members on Sundays. However, Mike said they never turn anyone away.
The business is open to the public Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Saturdays from eight to noon.
Mike said the operation sold around 20 drinks daily when it launched in April 2022. Now, the volume is five times that number.
The pastor added that his group’s original vision of providing a gathering place for Christians of all stripes is starting to come together.
He said a group from Cross Church meets at Salt and Light and that homeschool groups also frequent the café.
Mike said the church’s next outreach will be a clothing ministry. He said the congregation has already reached out to residents of the nearby Bradford Motel and Campground to help meet clothing needs. He added that he wants to start the clothing ministry before school begins in August.
“I just know that when our kids were younger, it’s like we always had trouble paying for stuff,” he recalled. “Plus, we have people come through here all the time who are homeless or just traveling through, and we’ll help them when we can.”
