Attention, coffee lovers: this one’s for you.
Coffee connoisseurs everywhere have their many reasons for faithfully sipping their morning (or afternoon, or…evening- hey, no judgment here) cup of joe…and Fresh Seven Coffee in St. Francis is supplying us with, well, about seven more reasons to dive into caffeinated bliss.
The business, co-owned and operated by Heidi Plumb and Kale Dankenbring, is a coffee lover’s delight. A small-batch coffee roaster that roasts four-pound batches of coffee beans daily, Fresh Seven Coffee never serves their coffee beyond seven days after it is roasted, hence the name of the business. Fresh Seven roasts only high-quality, seasonal coffee beans, resulting in coffee that is as smooth as it is delightful.
Heidi, with a background in PR and event planning, and Kale, with a background in IT and mechanics share a common background of a love for fine coffee. Inspired by their love of the coffee industry and the lack of specialty coffee in small communities, the caffeinated duo was motivated to establish a space of their own to fit the niche. The concept for their business was born in India in November of 2011 and came to fruition in the United States in 2013.
Heidi explained some of the background behind the evolution of the shop. “It was originally a 1998 Haulmark trailer, repurposed into a traditional espresso bar, and parked on the “main” street of downtown St. Francis, Kansas.”
But my, how far they’ve come. “Fresh Seven has evolved into a fully operational hand-crafted espresso and cocktail bar, cafe and community center offering locally-sourced food and beverage options Monday through Saturday,” she went on to say.
Kale explains that what sets Fresh Seven apart is truly the quality of the coffee. “Most people have never tried fresh roasted quality coffee,” he explains. “Nearly all coffee on the grocery store shelf or in chain stores is “commodity coffee”, not high quality hand-picked cherries like specialty coffee…in specialty coffee, a human is looking at each coffee cherry, determining if it’s ripe, rotten, moldy, or diseased, then picking it if it’s good. The alternative is a machine that indiscriminately plucks all the cherries from the plant; rotten, moldy, unripe, infested and all, which gets in your ‘cheap’ coffee.”
Fresh Seven will select only the best coffee beans, using a review process and a specific custom process for roasting. Kale elaborated about the process. “We acquire the raw coffee beans (seeds of coffee cherry) from various importers. There are many details about the coffees we review and then select certain criteria, always choosing the best options we see in each variety. Then we purchase them in 150 pound bags. I have a specific roasting profile that I use and pretty much always stick to, and yes- it’s a trade secret,” he says with a smile. “I can do custom roasting for people who like their coffee a certain way as long as they purchase the whole batch. I roast the coffee orders from the website the morning its shipped out so it’s timed perfectly for consumption.”
In addition to their coffee selection, Fresh Seven also offers a small breakfast and lunch menu, sourcing food locally, making items from scratch, and avoiding the use of any processed ingredients. “We don’t use any processed ingredients, sugar, or oil and we focus on offering whole-food, plant-based options, with very clean ingredients. Seventy-five percent of our menu is plant-based. People in the community can rely on healthy options 100% of the time,” said Heidi.
Some of the local suppliers include Callicrate Cattle Company of St. Francis, Y-Knot Farms of Bird City.
As if it could get any better at Fresh Seven, they also serve beer, wine, mimosas, Bloody Mary’s, margaritas, mules, Irish coffees, and more. However, Heidi points out that “cocktails are just a little something extra we offer on our menu, but they are definitely not the main focus.”
Fresh Seven, the birth child of a couple of coffee lovers, has truly evolved into one of the most special and unique coffee destinations in the state of Kansas. “It’s been a huge project that has taken 10 years to build, and we could not have done it without the support of our amazing customers.”
The duo enjoys operating their business in the community of St. Francis and is very thankful for their dedicated customers. “Our very favorite customers (they know who they are) make our job fun, and we always have the best coffee at our immediate disposal. It’s also fun to offer this service to the community.”
To learn more about Fresh Seven Coffee, you can visit their website or follow them on Facebook or Instagram.
