By Jackie Schatell | Suburban Essex Magazine |

When Dave Fletcher, owner of Cedar Cedar Bean's Coffee Joint set out to open his shop in 2018, he had a few things in mind – he wanted to be a place where people could congregate and feel like a community, where artists and musicians could share their art, and he wanted to give back. He has achieved these goals in spades.

"We try to be a place for everyone where people from all walks of life will feel comfortable hanging out," he says.

The business is a small-batch coffee shop with freshly roasted, third-wave artisan beans, triple-filtered nitro cold brews, whole-leaf teas, and delicious home-baked treats. Seasonal coffees are sourced from farms in El Salvador, Columbia, Ethiopia, Bali, Guatemala, South America, Africa, and more.

But Cedar Bean's Coffee Joint is a lot more than just coffee. Dave strives to help others every chance he gets, whether he is raising money for organizations or schools, donating coffee to events and causes, delivering toys to children for Christmas, holding food drives for the Human Needs Pantry, or having the Scouts selling their cookies and popcorn just outside the coffee house.

He also supports local artists, musicians, and the Cedar Grove Artists Alliance via receptions, open mic nights, and live music shows. Gallery artists are allowed to sell their art, and a portion of the sales is donated back to programs for the arts Dave even has the students from the High School come and perform songs from their plays there.

All one needs to do is look at the robust calendar of events with craft nights, paint and sip events, meditations, and more, to see that there is a lot going on at Cedar Beans Coffee Joint.

Dave says, "People need positivity in their lives.

One of the privileges of running a small business in this community is that people get to know you and look up to you. Doing good is good for humanity."

From April 2023 Suburban Essex Magazine. Written by Jackie Schatell