Biff cat. That’s what the locals call the Beaver Falls Coffee and Tea Company (BFCAT). Located across the street from Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pa., and opened in 2006 by entrepreneurs, parents, and theologians Russ and Bethany Warren, the coffee shop serves the community not only as a place to enjoy a cup of joe, but as a place to do homework, gather for Bible study, meet with professors or disciplers, or just hang out.

It has been a labor of love for the Warrens, who have persevered through the birth of three children (the first not long before the shop opened), two master’s degrees, various other occupations to make ends meet, and living where they worked.

For those of us who frequent BFCAT, we have a hard time remembering what Route 18 was like before we could get our White Chocolate Mint Mochas, Promised Lands (steamed milk with honey), and Euro Monkeys (a banana, Nutella, and espresso smoothie). Here is what Bethany Warren had to say about the beloved BFCAT.

Heidi Filbert: Tell me where the idea for the coffee shop came from and how it got started.

Bethany Warren: The first inklings came when I was a high school student visiting Geneva and thought it strange that there was nowhere to “hang out” in the neighborhood. Then, as a student, I thought, “Someone should really open a coffee shop here.” Then it became, “I should open a coffee shop.” And, then, when Russ came into the picture, it was, “We should open a coffee shop.” It really became a calling for us to do that here, so we stuck around after graduation and worked towards making it happen.

We searched for funding, researched every aspect of the coffee industry from seed to cup, and found our location. We finally got a small business loan through a great loan fund in Pittsburgh that focuses on young start-ups in Southwestern Pennsylvania. I found them when I was about to give up looking. Who was going to fund a cafe run by twenty-somethings in a depressed post-industrial town? I declared “my last Google search for funding sources ever” (after four years of trying). This fund came up first, so I called them right away, and they were immediately interested and willing to talk. No one had even wanted to talk before!

We opened in December 2006, four months after that “last” search, three years after graduating, three-and-a-half years after writing the initial business plan, and about eight years after the initial idea. In retrospect, it was good we had to wait to get going—it gave us the opportunity to understand the coffee industry, the city, and the neighborhood so much more fully. The business plan had morphed from my own initial ideas to a more educated, more community-focused plan with greater depth and maturity.

HF: How did your faith play a part in that?

BW: I’m a firm believer in the concept that we are called to always be redeeming creation in every aspect. Our lives aren’t separated into sacred/secular spheres, and there’s no church life/business life distinction. God has called us, through Christ, to be redeeming our thoughts, actions, relationships, communities, tasks, work, and everything. I love that Abraham Kuyper quote: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’” That, along with Micah 6:8, and the command to “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the guiding philosophy in how we make decisions, train people, and do the nitty gritty. Shoveling snow off the sidewalk, pulling top-notch espresso, roasting the beans carefully, interacting with a very diverse crowd, scrubbing the toilet, etc.—these are all Christ’s, and I have no right to think of them as outside of this worldview. Of course, this doesn’t mean my attitude is always perfect, or that this always works out in practice as well as it sounds in theory. Sometimes, I’d rather be going home to bed rather than washing dishes at the shop at 10:30 p.m. That’s when I’ve got remind myself that this is important work of redemption too.

HF: Do you see the coffee shop as a ministry? Why or why not?

BW: It absolutely is a ministry. We never set out to start a “Christian coffee house.” We are Christians running a coffee house instead. This gives us so much more opportunity for welcoming all types and backgrounds of people, treating them like the image-bearers they are (whether they know it or not), and allowing the shop, its customers, and employees to minister in nontraditional and very traditional ways. The place plays host, every day, to various meetings of mentor/mentees, local ministry leaders with each other and the people they work with, parents and children, resident directors and their student resident assistants, etc. The customers minister to each other, but we have to set the stage and provide the means for that to happen.

We also do a ton of conversational and leading-by-example ministry from behind the coffee bar. We talk to people all day, and some really open up. We get to know some over months of sitting at the front counter, sipping their coffee, or sometimes in a surprisingly revelatory two-minute interaction while we make a drink to go. We get all kinds, from the homeless to the affluent, the faith-assured to the doubting. And we are called to wash all of their feet, in the form of serving them all our very best and allowing them the space to talk to us or others.

HF: What is your favorite thing about running a coffee shop?

BW: This may sound cheesy, but I absolutely love making drinks for people. Having been involved in the entire process of the coffee’s journey from seed to cup in some way, and getting to know the farmers at “origin,” seeing the processing, the huge amount of time, sweat, and investment that goes into every bean there, and then bringing those beans to our community. That’s a perspective that allows me/us to see firsthand and participate heavily in the redemption of this little fruit that affects so much of the world. Twenty-five million people in the world work in coffee in some way in their life. It’s the second-most highly traded commodity (oil is first). So the impact even one community shop can have on entire farming communities all over the world is actually quite large, if we source them carefully and buy them in a way that respects the fact that these people we can’t see are image-bearers too. When we get those beans in our shop, it’s up to us to roast, store, grind, brew and serve with respect for the work that was put into them before we got them. So every time I pull a shot of espresso or pour a cup of coffee, I have to think about continuing their hard work, and presenting their product in a worthy manner, and that is a huge source of joy for me. I’m one link in the chain. I’ve sourced these beans with love for God’s creation and those He has created, and I’m serving it to more of those He has created. 

The technical knowledge needed to properly brew espresso and coffee is never-ending and surprisingly complicated. It requires lots of training, trial and error, focus, speed, scientific knowledge, skill, and love to really get it right. It’s never “just a cup of coffee,” and the people making it aren’t just killing time between classes. This is a trade—a craft-skilled labor that you’d never know from the other side of the counter takes so much.

HF: What is your least favorite part?

BW: I’d say the personal investment of unbelievable amounts of time and energy, and the personal risk involved financially, are the biggest stressors, although they were not unanticipated. We knew it would be like that, but that doesn’t make it easy on a family. When most families are finishing their day and spending time together, one of us is leaving to go work a shift, prepare a catering job’s worth of food, or roast the coffee. Really all these things happen at all times of the day or night. Add to that the fact that we both work jobs outside of the shop to support our family financially (it provides jobs for others but rarely any income for us), and we can get burned out pretty easily. Just this summer we moved our family from living in very tight quarters above the shop to another home in the neighborhood, and that has reduced the stress on our family in dramatic ways. We are no longer constantly in public, or constantly available. A little physical distance between our home and business, especially with a growing family, has made the time we do spend working there or working on it so much more productive and valuable. That has been a huge, jubilee-style blessing!

HF: Anything else you want to add?

BW: We really think God’s people should be buying their coffee beans for home in a redeemed way, since buying the cheap stuff exploits a lot of people around the world. We are a roastery as much as a café, and that’s the biggest way we as Christians can make an easy, life-affirming choice. It doesn’t make sense to me to spend a buck or two less for something that isn’t fresh, doesn’t taste like it should, and most definitely hurts other image-bearers. This whole concept—thinking about how you purchase everything in a redeemed way—is a pretty big lifestyle change for people to consider, but we believe coffee is a good and easy way to start the change. Just saving money isn’t the apex of financial responsibility—how we spend the money matters to God too. You can find local roasters anywhere that care about quality and source their beans in a way that treats others with love.

Next time you are in Beaver Falls, make sure to stop in and say hi to Bethany and Russ and support their work by buying a drink or a pound of roasted coffee. BFCAT coffee can also be ordered by emailing russ@beaverfallscoffeeandtea.com.

In addition to regular business, the coffee shop also plays host to many different activities including concerts, art shows, poetry readings, meetings, and the occasional college class. Thursday night is Pie Night. Farm to Table Dinners with locally-sourced ingredients compiled into gourmet dishes are a seasonal event.



—Heidi Filbert is a member at First RPC of Beaver Falls, Pa. She stays at home with her three children and enjoys writing the occasional article for the Witness.