By: Fitzsimons Innovation Community

Here on the Fitzsimons Innovation Community campus, life sciences professionals thrive on collaboration, innovation, and breakthroughs in patient care. Another thing they thrive on? Caffeine. One of our newest Community members brings caffeine to spare, but they also bring compassion, forward thinking, and a business model that drives meaningful social change—one cup of coffee at a time.

Change Please Coffee recently opened on the Fitzsimons Innovation Community campus in Bioscience 3. It is their first location in the Denver metro area. This month we had the pleasure of speaking with Ryan McMillan, Chief Commercial Officer for Change Please, and Taylor Mack, Program Manager for the Denver and Aurora region and Café Manager for their newest location right here on campus. They told us about the Change Please mission, recent U.S. expansion, and how a coffee company with a critical purpose is the perfect fit for a Community that knows the importance of caring for others.

Started with a single coffee cart in London in 2015, Change Please Coffee is a social enterprise built on the idea that really good coffee can be used as a catalyst to help people who are experiencing homelessness. Because lack of experience and work skills are a top barrier to employment, the Change Please mission focuses on training unhoused individuals as baristas, a job that provides a skillset and experience that translate into future employment, not just in coffee, but in customer service, hospitality, and even the corporate world. Almost ten years later, their barista training program has locations in the UK, France, Germany, Ireland, and, most recently, here in the U.S. in North Carolina, New York, and now Colorado. The program provides work experience, help with finding housing, and important skills that the trainees will use for the rest of their lives.

When Ryan McMillan started with Change Please Coffee in 2019, he was focused on helping CEO and founder Cemal Ezel transition the company from a charity organization into a coffee company with a purpose. He told us how it works at the high level: “Everything we do is with a focus on how we can make an impact in our communities. The cafes aren’t there to make money, they are places to help people. We can make our money through selling coffee wholesale to places like stadiums, airlines, and corporate offices. We then reinvest 100% of our profits into building the cafes and training academies, where we’re able to help people and showcase our mission. When people see what we do, they often want us to expand into their areas, too, partially because there are so many communities with dire needs for our services. It’s how the concept has continued to snowball.”

Mack then tells us how that concept works at the café on the Fitzsimons Innovation Community campus. “Here in our brick-and-mortar cafés we’re refining our mission even more. In Denver and Aurora we work with referral partners, agencies who work on the frontlines with people experiencing homelessness. In these relationships, we act as a workforce development partner. They refer individuals to us who are ready to work, and we help to get those people started with our training program. We’re currently on our fourth cohort of trainees at this location.”

Here’s a glance at how the training program works:

• Trainees begin with a few rounds of Change Please Orientation—both in groups and one-on-one—so that they know what to expect when formal training begins.
• They then participate in a week of Barista Training, comprised of 20-25 hours of hands-on instruction on everything coffee, including espresso basics, pulling a perfect shot, milk texture, and making and pouring each drink.
• The next step is Immersive Workplace Experience, essentially additional job training opportunities where, here in Denver, local businesses host the Change Please trainees for shadow shifts. These shifts give another layer of understanding to what a career in hospitality looks like and provide supplementary skills beyond coffee.
• The final step is Onward Employment which includes one-on-one support in job hunting. Change Please provides access to a vast network of potential employers, references, and training in resume writing and interview skills.

All of these elements of the training program just emphasize what Mack explains about the Change Please mission. “This isn’t just about teaching people to make coffee. It’s about getting people’s needs met so that they can find long-term, meaningful employment doing something that interests them.”

Now that you know about the remarkable difference that Change Please is making right here at Fitzsimons Innovation Community and in the surrounding areas, you might have just one more question: how’s the coffee? We’re here to tell you, the coffee is almost as amazing as the mission behind it. Change Please Coffee has a full menu of coffee and espresso drinks both hot and cold, a delectable selection of pastries, snacks, and sweet and savory hand pies from local businesses like Rebel Bread Co. and Hineman Pies, and top-notch, friendly service—all within a cheery, sunny ambience that begs you to stay awhile for work or socializing.

McMillan reminds us that coffee shops are the new gathering places—the hearts of communities—quickly outpacing bars as social spots. In health-conscious states like Colorado, that can be doubly true. But why Fitzsimons Innovation Community specifically? “We looked at a number of sites in and around Denver, and Fitzsimons and Aurora are a natural fit for us. We love serving student populations because they always have big interest in our mission. Working closely with the medical community is also key. Part of the work we do helps alleviate some strain on the medical community, plus we know that medical professionals are as focused as we are on making a difference. Buying their coffee from us allows them to continue helping others while doing something they were going to do anyway,” he explains. “The same goes for businesses on campus who want to use our coffee in their offices. They have to purchase coffee anyway, why not serve their employees amazing coffee that also has a part in changing lives?” Companies like Google, Bank of America, Virgin Airlines, and many more are already doing just that.

Change Please has big plans for potential expansion in the Denver Metro area, but for now the Fitzsimons Innovation Community location is their only Colorado café. Community members get to take further advantage of this with a 10% discount (show your badge), punch cards for frequent visitors, and reserved short-term parking out front so that you can pick up your coffee on your way into work. It’s not every day that you can get amazing coffee, locally made pastries, and friendly service, all while being part of something that is actively improving lives and making a difference. Actually, maybe now you can do that every day. We can’t wait to see you there.

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Change Please is located in the Bioscience 3 building at 2115 N Scranton St Suite 1080, Aurora, CO 80045. Visit their website here to learn about even more life-changing things they’re doing to help people across the world.