Steps from Portsmouth Olympic Harbour and Lake Ontario Park, St. Lawrence Coffee Company sits along one of Kingston’s busiest walkways.
The café had a “soft opening” at the end of July and a Grand Opening on August 8. It stayed open seven days a week until Labour Day, and is currently open every weekend from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. until Oct. 4
Despite being in a shipping container, the menu is extensive, selling gourmet cookies from 23&Co on Brock Street., pastries from Butter My Buns in Napanee, and freshly roasted coffee beans.
“It’s a full cafe menu, off grid on the water, in a container that you can walk in,” said owner Matt Potwarka in an interview with The Journal.
Potwarka began roasting coffee in 2018 as a side hustle while in the military and decided to open the café after retiring last year.
“I came up with our menu that includes all espresso drinks, like your single, double espresso, cappuccinos, lattes, flat white,” Potwarka said. At the heart of it is a semi-automatic Rocket Boxer One Group espresso machine.
He roasts his own beans inside the container two to three times a day, allowing him to fine-tune each roast to his liking.
But coffee isn’t the only concern, as another aspect Potwarka must get exactly right is energy consumption.
The container runs on solar and ran out of electricity twice this season. The roaster and espresso machine draw the most power, so he has learned how to split it between the two.
On days when the sun isn’t enough, Potwarka takes the battery home overnight to charge. He plans on adding wind power next year to become fully self-sufficient for energy.
The largest challenge that comes with being off grid is bringing in and disposing of water. Potwarka fills up blue Culligan bottles at water filling stations that use reverse osmosis to filter water for drinks every day.
“The better the water, the better the coffee,” he said.
When it comes to choosing names, Potwarka often draws on local geography.
“I wanted [the name] to represent something local in Kingston, and all the coffee that I roast is named after specific islands in the 1000 Islands,” he said.
Potwarka spent his childhood visiting the islands on his grandparents’ boat in Rockport, specifically using the places he’s visited as name inspiration.
The shipping container came from Montreal, home to Canada’s second-largest port. The mural on the outside, done by a local tattoo artist in Napanee, makes it impossible to miss.
“It’s coffee beans, and if you look, it says coffee on all four sides and then it’s a sideways cup with coffee flowing out of it like a wave,” he said.
The operation was initially planned to be run entirely by Potwarka, but he quickly found that it was too busy to manage everything at once. His daughter and her friend helped him run it this summer, and he hopes to involve his two younger children once they’re old enough to keep the business family oriented.
“I did this to be down by the water, or just to chill and roast coffee. It ended up being trying to keep up roasting coffee while serving a lot of people,” Potwarka said.
Potwarka’s military experience helped prepare him to run a business, from navigating power outages to water spraying everywhere when he first installed the plumbing.
“This is what you’re given, make it happen. That’s hard to do if you don’t have any experience in that. It’s easy to give up,” he said.
The container has seen a strong amount of interest from Queen’s students and faculty alike. Just before the school year started, he said a group of staff from West campus visited, adding he’s even had some “hardcore walkers” come from main campus.
A six-kilometre round trip from main campus and three from West Campus, the café offers a 10 per cent discount for Queen’s students with a valid student card.
So far, Potwarka says “the support has been fabulous.” The café will offer free coffee on Oct. 4 to thank customers for its first season and plans to reopen on the May long weekend next year.
Tags
Cafés, coffee, Lake Ontario, Local Businesses, small businesses, veteran
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