Recent Changes

Why Closing Our Cafe is a Good Sign

By: Ashley Dease, July 17, 2025

If you have visited Dignity Roasters in the last few months, you may have noticed several changes: the cafe is no longer there, a new roasting machine has been installed, and a new person is now working in the roastery. But why so many sudden changes? Are these changes good or bad? What is going to happen to Dignity Roasters in the future? Let’s talk about these changes and why we are excited about them.

No More Cafe

Closing a cafe doesn’t seem good. You may be wondering, “Are you going out of business?”

• Our simple answer: no.
• Our complicated answer: we needed more space for offices and coffee roasting.

The Roastery. Photo credit: Ashley Dease

Office Space

When we looked around at the cafe, we couldn’t help but notice how the building could be better used. The Wear Gloves operations team was in a cramped office, the client services office was even more cramped, and our cafe had all this amazing space that wasn’t getting used to its fullest potential. So with some moving around and a bit of construction, client services now has more space in the old operations office, and the operations team has a lot more space in half the roastery. An added perk is that they get to smell amazing coffee every day!

The spacious Operations office. Photo credit: Madi Kebrdle-Dingman

Roasting Space

Another demand on our cafe was the need to expand our roasting operations. Our subscription base is growing, which requires more space. We needed additional coffee storage, a larger machine, and more space for grinding and bagging coffee. This is great news for the roastery, but bad news for the cafe. 

Out with the Old, In with the New

With all that being said, you may have noticed a newer, larger roasting machine in Dignity Roasters. Our old little machine, Shadrach, was pumping out as much coffee as he could handle, but the fact of the matter is our need for coffee is growing, and Shad wasn’t keeping up. The tough decision was made to retire and replace him with a roaster that can produce twice the amount of coffee. Naturally, we named the new machine Meshach.

Ashley and Meshach. Photo credit: Josh Dease

A Different Face

The last change Dignity Roasters has made is that we hired a new Production Roaster, Ashley. Ashley comes to us with 2.5 years of Barista experience and a love of specialty coffee. We have big dreams for Dignity Roasters, and we trust Ashley can help bring those dreams to reality. Not only will Ashley help dial in our roasting recipes, but she will also aid in marketing and business development.

Onward and Upward

Looking at our new space, we can’t help but feel a twinge of sadness to see the cafe go, but we are also excited for the potential of these changes. We are focused on our mission to empower the underserved by providing meaningful employment opportunities through the craft of coffee roasting, packaging, and food handling. We know these changes are going to help us better serve that mission.