Creation Coffee opens new storefront on Pickard Street


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Creation Coffee opened its Mount Pleasant location on Jan. 27. The coffee shop is located at 914 E Pickard St. 

Creation Coffee has expanded from the Midland area to Mount Pleasant opening its second location at 914 E Pickard St. The shop opened at the end of January and has experienced an influx of customers craving a new coffee spot. 

 The coffee used by Creation Coffee is imported from farms all over the world, primarily in South America and Africa. 

“We’re sourcing coffee from some of the best farms and producers around the world,” Ben Marsh, one of the founders of Creation Coffee, said. “We’re starting with excellent, exceptional coffee and then serving it in a space and in a way that is inviting... and welcoming to people.” 

Besides coffee, Jacob Spence, one of the founders, said that the company is developing a menu that would include breakfast sandwiches, pastries, bagels and fresh fruit.

While constructing this menu, Spence and Marsh are keeping in mind dietary restrictions — offering keto and gluten-free options. It is expected that the official menu should be available within the next month. 

A drive-thru is also expected to be officially up and running in the early summer.

Assistant Manager of Creation Coffee’s Mount Pleasant location, Marina Budinsky, believes that Creation Coffee is a “cut above the rest."

“Creation Coffee is the only coffee that I can drink black and enjoy and I'm not just saying that,” Budinsky said. “That was definitely a selling point for me. You can tell there's a lot of care put into every single cup of coffee.”

Mackenzie Lane, a Mid-Michigan Community College student, made her first endeavor to Creation Coffee with her friend Savannah Schantz, a Central Michigan University student.

“I don't really go to coffee shops, but it's really nice in here,” Lane said. “I really like it. It's very clean compared to other places that I've gone to with my friends.”

Schantz agreed with Lane about the shop being "clean" and said that it was a "nice environment." The two said they would return to the shop and would also recommend it to their own friends as well.

The overall goal of Creation Coffee is to not only serve "life changing" coffee, but to give "outstanding connection and service, and to really take care of people," Spence said.

How Creation Coffee began

The name Creation Coffee stems from the idea of new beginnings, and the jumpstart of creating something new, Spence and Marsh said. 

“When we were coming up with the name ‘Creation,’ we were thinking about, what does coffee mean to us and what is coffee about and what does it represent?” Spence said. “To us, coffee represented a lot of beginnings, a lot of creativity and a lot of creation.”

Budinsky said that she and the owners, Spence and Marsh, have been going around neighboring businesses to offer free coffee and to get to know people. 

“I think it's been giving us a good sense of community,” Budinsky said. “We've already gotten a couple of regulars, so it's nice to have a familiar face every day. I think they're a great addition to Mount Pleasant.”

The two owners met in college at Northwood University located in Midland. During this time, Spence and Marsh were consuming a lot of coffee. 

“We had a coffee that was better than any coffee we'd ever had, and we were driven to get more of that coffee,” Spence said. “That actually sparked kind of a hobby and an interest.”

The two college students decided to find a way to affordably roast coffee from home. The only available method they could find was using a $2 popcorn-maker from Goodwill and ordering green coffee online. Once they attained these, the experiments commenced. 

Creation Coffee originally started as a hobby in 2011, but soon developed into a wholesale coffee roasting company in May of 2016.

Spence and Marsh dedicated four years to researching and obtaining imported coffees from farms all over the world. As a wholesale business, they would supply coffee shops, restaurants and grocery stores, Spence said. 

“We've helped over 70 coffee shops get started in nine different states,” Spence said. “We supply equipment online, cafe supplies, coffee, tea, all of that stuff for coffee shops…We do consultations and stuff with different coffee shops and help them get off the ground.” 

After a while, Spence and Marsh decided they wanted a coffee shop of their own. However, they still wanted to offer the same support they had been for other coffee businesses. 

In 2020, they did just that. Creation Coffee’s first location is in Midland where Spence and Marsh went to college together.  

“We just loved that community…and there was nobody else roasting coffee there in Midland,” Marsh said. “We just saw an opportunity. That's where we got our start…Midland is where we would call home. We wanted to stay close to home and serve our home community.”

Creation Coffee's future

Now that Spence and Marsh have expanded to Mount Pleasant, they are excited for the many opportunities to come. 

“We've always loved Mount Pleasant as a community,” Marsh said. “Just a lot of great energy with (CMU) here. It has always been a target for where we would love to be. We're super excited to be here serving great coffee.”

Spence and Marsh are going to be opening their third location in Saginaw next month. Afterwards, they will be looking to continue to expand throughout Michigan with hopes to one day be worldwide.

Creation Coffee’s products are available in 27 Meijer stores all throughout the region. 

“You could go across the street to this Meijer and our coffees are on the shelf,” Marsh said. “That aspect will be growing here in the next year or so.”

Within the next few years, one of Spence and Marsh’s major goals is to increase the charity of their company to be able to give back to the people that produce the coffee as well as the communities that their coffee shops are located in.

“Our mission is to create exceptional, life changing coffees like what we had, to create meaningful connections and relationships with our customers and partners and to create a better world,” Spence said.

To find out more about Creation Coffee’s wholesale endeavors and to learn more about the business, visit its website.

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