New York City-based Roasting Plant plans to open a location in downtown Detroit's First National Building, creating a home-coming of sorts for the woman behind it.
Elizabeth Rose spent the first few years of her life growing up in Detroit's
University District neighborhood. Her family moved to the suburbs midway through her childhood and she moved to San Diego in 1996 to raise her own family. This year her youngest child is graduating high school and Rose was looking at starting the next chapter of her life, which she thought would be in New York City.
"Lo and behold a funny thing happened on the road to Manhattan," Rose says, adding moving back to her hometown weren't even a consideration for her plans at the time. However,
Roasting Plant's innovative Javabot™ system made its way to the people at Quicken Loans, which prompted its sister company, Bedrock Real Estate Services, to recruit Roasting Plant to Detroit.
"They opened my eyes," says Rose, a director at Roasting Plant. "It took about one hour, and I was like, 'Wow. It's a great idea for us to come here.'"
Roasting Plant specializes in providing a personalized experience for coffee lovers with its unique roasting technology. The Javabot system allows customers to choose from the 11 daily choices of coffee beans, and then watch the technology create their drink on demand. The First National Building location will be Roasting Plant's first coffee shop outside of New York City.
The First National Building location will have a warm, modern feel overlooking Campus Martius. It will feature both indoor and outdoor seating. The First National Building is also significant to Rose because she used to roam its halls as a child when her father used to work there.
Source: Elizabeth Rose, a director at Roasting Plant
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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