About bwè kafe
Hello! We are Maryanne, Dale, Evan and Tats—a family from Hoboken, New Jersey.
In 2013, we set out to create a local cafe, where specialty coffee meets community in creative & meaningful ways. A place where we would want to hang out with our kids, family, and friends while meeting new friends every day. Where the care in making a delicious brew surpasses the cup and transforms into creative energy to do good in the world. Where people can come to be inspired. And so bwè kafe was born! We’ve been brewing and building ever since.
Today with three coffee shops and a restaurant in full swing, we’ve found ourselves surrounded by an amazing team of like minded individuals, both passionate about the art of coffee and building community, who help us on our mission day in and day out. By using our collective passions and specializations of coffee, the arts, interior design, event/wedding production and entrepreneurial spirit, we hope to offer a coffee shop experience that is fulfilling both physically and spiritually, where people come to joyfully seek and pass-on a part of themselves to others.
the bwè way
At bwè kafe, we believe (and have come to learn!) that it is all and always about the people. No matter how high quality the product, how beautiful the space, how awesome the music...the magic comes from us as a team of individuals, authentically engaging with each other and the community, day in day out. Creating moments, that turn into habits (the good kind!), that build relationships, that foster friendships.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
This is what bwè kafe is all about; valuing each other as individuals, and continuously growing a strong culture of service together, to positively impact the communities in which we serve! Along with our Core Values, we have developed a tool bag for the bwè fam to help foster this culture of service right from the first day of training. These tools or concepts have been acquired over many years of learning (yes, often the hard way of course…) as we as a family and as a team have grown from one, to two, to three coffee shops. They are also forever morphing and fine tuning, as new challenges appear - oh hey there global pandemic - however, as long as we move forward with a humble spirit of learning, gaining from our mistakes and never burn bridges, we believe that the future is bright…just like our light roast!
Love For Haiti & Our Mission
The spark that started all this? Following the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, Maryanne and a team of U.S and Haitian doctors traveled to Port-Au-Prince in the days following the tragic event, providing relief support and medical aid. The Ark Project/Love For Haiti (501c3) was born from these initial trips, and for the past decade has focused on providing funding for higher education students in Haiti. The inspiration to open bwè kafe is to create a sustainable source of funding for Love For Haiti, by selling coffee & goods to our local communities here in Hoboken and Jersey City.
With Love For Haiti now supporting 19 full-time students, and bwè kafe as its largest contributor, we continuously seek new ways to serve local and global communities, with the core belief that humanity is inextricably connected and the choices and actions we take goes hand-in-hand with building the foundations of tomorrow.
bwè kafe means drink coffee in Haitian Creole.
bwè Family
bwè family is a family-run community of businesses, with a shared dedication to pursue our company vision: to build a global culture of serving others, in collaboration with others! With each business operating in their own unique character & style, our teams work towards our vision every day by living our values of Service, Excellence, Creativity, Unity and Respect, by engaging in active community building, and by mastering the craft of our served products.