Aspire Credit Union Brews up Partnership with Local Coffee House

With Room Coffee, who had just celebrated their fourth birthday in their downtown Minot location found themselves looking for a new home. Aspire Credit Union thought ‘how can we help’. Being local, we wanted to support them and provide a creative solution to help them, with the goal of keeping the business open as they transitioned out of their brick-and-mortar building to a new permanent home.  After a handful of messages, emails, and meetings, the two organizations came up with a plan. On Labor Day, With Room Coffee opened a pop-up shop inside the credit union.

“A coffee shop and its operation are outside the scope of what we normally do in a financial, but we wanted to figure out a way to help,” stated Mindee Kohlman, CEO of Aspire Credit Union, “when we looked around, we thought, we have the space, so let’s see if we can make it work.”  Throughout conversations, we looked at all the locations inside the building that we thought would work, but when the With Room Coffee team saw the garage, they knew that was their spot. “Of all the places we looked at, the garage was not where we thought they would end up” Kohlman continued. However, the With Room Coffee team had an immediate vision, and knowing this was a temporary solution, they were willing to get creative.

In working with the With Room Coffee team, we learned many of their customers order ahead, stop in and pick up their orders. The pop-up in the garage allows their customers to get their coffee delivered through their window and go on their way through our teller line. As a credit union, we looked at traffic, and numbers to be sure that this plan was not going to hinder our customer service, or traffic flow patterns, or our mission as an organization. For the next few months, we are pleased to do what we can to make it work.

Rebecca Alvarez, owner of With Room Coffee said “We are excited to be at Aspire Credit Union. We were determined to keep our staff employed during this transition and with this partnership, we have been able to do that.”  You can find With Room Coffee on social media, where they are frequently updating their hours.