Greenmount Coffee Lab, a new addition the Red Emma’s family of cooperative projects, is now operating inside Baltimore makerspace, Open Works (1400 Greenmount Ave.).
Offering a full coffee and tea bar, and a selection of vegan pastries and healthy snacks for a light lunch, the Coffee Lab is exclusively stocked with transparently-traded, cooperatively-roasted beans by Thread Coffee, whose new roasting facility is on-site at Open Works. Patrons can enter through Open Works’ front door or via the side entrance on Greenmount Ave. Hours: Monday – Sunday, 8:30 am – 3:30 pm.
What makes this place cool? Besides the fact that GCL is located inside a makerspace, there is actual MAKING happening with the roastery being right on site! Visitors and guests can see the roasting process as it happens, though the roastery is not open to the public or members of Open Works.
Greenmount Coffee Lab offers access to Thread’s Community Supported Coffee bean refill program, and the “Pay-It-Forward” system, which allows patrons to purchase a suspended cup of coffee or snack for someone else to claim.
“The heart of any makerspace is social: a place for meeting your fellow makers, collaborating, and hanging out,” said Will Holman, GM Open Works. “Bringing a coffee shop to Open Works made perfect sense for fueling the creative community here as well as bringing some new, healthy food options to the neighborhood. We admire GCL’s commitment to ethics in sourcing and their worker-owned co-op structure.”
