Our Story

Post-COVID, the emergence of third-wave coffee shops grew. Every town was getting THEIR coffee shop. Every town, but Cassadaga. At this time, Cassadaga was in a lul in the communtiy. There were some oportunities for others to gather together, but mostly they looked for other towns to do so. What they were missing was a coffee shop.

In August of 2023, JoJo's Asian Cafe decided it was time to close up shop and move down south closer to family. Being a staple in the community, this was a big let down for many people. This was the boba spot for kids, and the chineese dinner for families. Living in Rochester, NY where Abi and I met in college, we were given a call from Abi's family that the building had gone up for sale and we should buy it and open our coffee shop that we dreamt of. On December 24th, 2023 we signed the papers, purchasing the future location of 3 Lakes Cafe

At the time, Abi was working at a coffee shop that she started back in August when the plan started, and Jake was working at Jersey Mikes Subs as a GM. If you know anything about any chineese restaurant, they don't look like coffee shops. But knowing the situation, we thought it would be best for us to keep our jobs and travel down on the weekends to get work done. We were given the keys on January 1st and from then until March 1st they traveled down on weekends. Slowly moving personal belongings to the upstairs and cleaing up the downstairs, we were in way over our heads and we knew it.

Once we were fully moved down to Cassadga, we were down in the shop from sun up to way after sun down. Taking one step at a time, making checklists, finishing them, making more. While we were still working on the cunstruction portion of the work, Abi substituded at the local school to continue bringing in money to afford the work needed to be done. The other way that we were able to afford everything is from 1 bank taking a chance on us. M&T Bank

We talked to many banks with this fool proof pitch "We want you to give us $35,000 and we are going to quit our jobs and open a restaurant in a small town" If you know anything about the restaurant business, not many are successful. So the odds of us being able to pay any bank back were stacked against us. But we recieved a phone call from a woman at M&T Bank who heard of our story and was willing to take a risk on us.

Next thing we knew we had movement. Buying all the wood we needed for the construction, all the paint to repaint every wall, and eventually all the equipment to stock a whole restaurant. One fun moment from when we bought all the equipment was the tractor trailers pulling over and unloading pallets of equipment that we bought. It was a restaurant owners Christmas dream.

Photo of the kithen once we got it cleaned out of everything we didn't keep

Feeling in over our heads, we had to ask for a lot of help. Jake growing up in Rochester, he didn't know much about anything when it came to construction and carpentry. Abi, is an art wiz and her time to shine when it was time to decorate. But until then, Jake needed to ask for help from any electrician, plumber, or constructon worker that would help for free.

Making mistakes, calling for help and learning from them was what happened for those six months. But as construction was coming to a close and the cosmetic side of the project was starting, Abi came in a went to work. Organizing and shaping this building into what you see today. She had a vision from high school on what it would look like and she was bringing that vision to life. Making sure that no table and chair matched giving each seat a unique expierence.

As the projects were coming to a close and the team was being formed for opening day, one last big hurdle was in the way. Back when the purchase went through, there was one thing that needed to be finalized by the previous owners. The septic needed to be replaced. It didn't occur to us at the time but now being 3 weeks away from opening day, we didn't have a public restroom. We sat on the phone for hours trying to figure out how to make sure the septic was replaced. But the shape and size that it needed to be was custom and made it so it would take 1-2 months to fix.

We were given clearance to open as normal per the health department, but we were not allowed to have a public restroom. That was not ideal for a grand opening, but it had to do. That was until we were given a call and by some miracle, they had all the parts ready just a couple days later and will come and do the septic the next week! Now it's just time to open. All the food was organized and the menu was finalized, we held a soft opening for a week to allow us to get into some rhythms of how the shop was going to run. Then, on Monday, May 26th, we held a ribbon cutting at 9 AM and were open for business.

Photo of the south side finshed

Looking back at what it took to open a coffee shop in a small town without any experience in any of it, if we knew what we were getting into, the mountian we were going to climb, we would have been too scared and backed out. But it takes a delusional mindset to accomplish something like this. A mindset that looks at the situation and ignores all the doubts and walls and just goes for it. We knew what we wanted, so we did that.

What about the chance of failure? That wasn't even a thought. What if we hate it? Didn't cross our minds. We hit road block after road block. We even had a man threaten to come to our unopened shop becasue of a disagreement. The cops needed to be called. That's a story for another day. But we reminded ourselves, this is our dream and we are going to give it the best shot we can. And if we fail? Pack it up and try again. We reached a point in the project that we knew it had to work. So many people knew and were counting on this business already that we couldn't fail. So we were ready to go until someone came and took it from our hands.

That's what it takes. The drive to do it no matter what the odds are or what is at steak. Thinking back to that little season of life, it all happened so fast. From start to finish we transformed this building in 6 months. It really feels like a blur and almost feels like we would not be able to replacate it again. But we don't need to. We have this coffee shop. This community. This foundation to be able to grow and continue pushing our mission to as many people as we can: Sharing our love of Jesus through our love of Coffee.