Ebenezers Coffeehouse

First up is Ebenezer's Coffee House, Reverend Mark Batterson, operates churches in seven theaters in the district. Am I correct? It's going to be three, seven services. Ah, okay. He calls it a coffee business model with a twist. Please welcome Mark Batterson. Well, thank you very much. Great to be with you this morning. In 1908, a German immigrant built a little diner, half a block from Union Station. And originally it said on their certificate of occupation that they serve butter and eggs. And kind of an interesting business because the buildings that are there now were not there. There was not food service on the trains. There was no refrigeration. And so people would get off the train. They would walk over this little diner, eat breakfast or lunch, get back on the train. In the 40s and 50s, that diner suffered because of food service on the trains and went through a couple of different evolutions. And eventually, in about 1980, that building turned into a nuisance property. When we found it, it was a crack house. And I moved on to Capitol Hill about 11 years ago. And this building had graffiti on it, cinder block in the windows and the doors. And I thought to myself, this would make an amazing coffee house. We didn't have anything And honestly, most pastors don't have anything to do with coffee houses besides drinking coffee. But we felt And it kind of fit our DNA as a church. We meet in movie theaters at Metro stops. We love being in the marketplace. And so we spotted this building. And honestly, our whole strategy was prayer. We prayed for this thing for eight years. And we should not own the piece of property. Four people offered more money for it than we did. Two of them real estate developers. But somehow, if you pray for something for eight years, sometimes something happens. And we bought that piece of property for $325,000. We built through a year of rezoning the property, a year of going through historic preservation. And then eventually demolished what was there, preserved the two historic walls. And we built a three level coffee house. Now top level, our offices, including mine, it's awfully nice having an office right above the coffee house. The only thing that would have been better is if they'd put a fireman's pole, It's a pretty sweet deal. One level is our coffee house. And then on the lower level, we build out the entire space as a performance space. And kind of the philosophy behind it is this. Jesus didn't hang out at the synagogue. He hung out at Wells. Wells were natural gathering places in ancient culture. Coffee houses are postmodern Wells. And so we thought instead of building church building, why don't we build a coffee house? And so several hundred people walked through our coffee house and we served them day in and day out from seven in the morning until nine or 10 at night. And then on the weekend, we do Saturday night services there and record in high definition and then p So it just kind of fits our personality, who we are, what we're doing. In terms of clientele, it's kind of an interesting place. We're right, we're kitty corner to station place. So thousands of employees who kind of walk over and we serve them during the day. On the weekend, it's the neighborhood that I live in, Capitol Hill. I live four blocks from the coffee house and so free Wi-Fi. And maybe even more importantly, we just added the NFL package. It's weekend. Wonderful advertising. And great game last night, yeah? I was going to wear my jersey, but I didn't quite know if that was appropriate. And so we serve our community. It's a wonderful location. Did we have a business plan before we opened? Yes. But if you don't have any experience, I mean, is it really a plan? Honestly, all we did is had a couple of our church employees work at a couple of coffee houses for about a year. And that was it. And then we kind of went into it. Now we knew we had to pass the Starbucks litmus test. They're the standard in the industry. So your product and your aesthetic have to be what it needs to be. And we think we've accomplished that. But bottom line, not much of a plan other than we honestly just felt And he's blessed the business and blessed the church. And we feel And we have 20 employees. And I think that's the bulk of it. So we'd be happy if we do Q&A. Happy to answer any questions at the end. Thank you.