Where It All Began

Steve and Becky Sandfort had always desired to create a space to bridge relationship gaps in their community and city. They found coffee to be that bridge.

They planted the Edge Church in their home and the coffeehouse grew out of that. They began work on the coffeehouse in 2012. Then in 2013, after 8 months of work in the building space, The Edge Coffeehouse was born.

“The inspiration for The Edge Coffee House was our love of community. Looking back on our lives, the times we most enjoyed our life as people / our life as believers, is when we were in close relationship with folks that we could talk about anything with and just have a good conversation. We just really enjoy being around other people! Our vision is to be the touch of Jesus through intentional hospitality and compassion. We just really feel like our community needs a lot more hospitality and compassion than it sometimes has.”-Pastor Steve

Grand Opening March 10, 2013

Church in the Coffeehouse

They hosted Sunday morning worship service in the coffeehouse. As the Sunday service got so large that they couldn’t fit the whole worshipping community in the coffee house, they moved the main service to the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. In 2017 the churches merged and Pastor Steve became the pastor for the Church.

The Edge Coffeehouse has continued to have a Sunday Morning worship service where someone plays a few worship songs and shares a scripture. This is a very relaxed “easy entry point” for people who may have just left a church, have never been to a church, or are looking for a church. The intention is to provide those at the coffeehouse love and compassion that they believe the church should have for those in their community. It is a nice little gathering that happens each week at !0:30 AM on Sunday.

A Roaster For Christmas

In the beginning, while their home church was very passionate about the coffeeshop, nobody really knew the business. It took time to learn the coffee business and set up the coffeeshop. For example, The remodeling work on the first suite took them 8 months just to get the coffeeshop ready to open.

They also had to find vendors. While they had several coffee vendors, they were always very sad to learn how much money actually went to the growers. They would always research and find out that the growers were only getting less than $1 for a $15 pound of coffee. They determined to do better than that.

They sought out the help of friends in the coffee business that encouraged them to buy green coffee directly from the growers and roast it themselves.

In 2015, Steve and Joel, Steve’s son-in-law and coffeehouse manager, bought each other small coffee roasters for Christmas and started learning to roast coffee.. After about 2 years of that trial and error and teaching themselves how to roast coffee, they formed Sojourn Roasting Company.

At Sojourn, coffee beans are what they call “mission sourced”. This means that they get the beans from growers in areas where the Christian Church at large is doing mission work. So, they are able to help missionaries in those communities to make a difference in the lives of the coffee growers. The growers end up making more than they would on the open market. They also host fund raisers for their growers, especially the ones in Honduras.

Sojourn Coffee

What Makes the Coffeehouse So Enjoyable?

The Coffeehouse environment lends itself to lots of conversation, music and lots of board games. Pastor Steve says the thing he loves the most is when customers are waiting on their coffee and they strike up a conversation at the coffee bar. There are many times that customers who are sitting at the tables will actually get up and join in conversation at the bar.

The hospitable atmosphere has existed since the beginning and is due to the amazing staff at the coffeehouse. The original manager, Carrie Reber, set the tone by making people feel like they were the most important person in the room. The staff has continued to relate to their customers and exist like extended family in that space.

Most FUN Customers

Pastor Steve says his most fun customers are those that come in and share with him about their jobs. Hearing all of those stories of life from all kinds of professionals is so very interesting. Some of them have amazing adventures like private pilots who arrive in the coffeeshop sharing where they have been that day.

One of Pastor Steve’s most fun customer is Matt Ivicic who is a tile layer by profession. Matt also has a heart for people with addictions. He is in the coffeeshop almost everyday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he stays after closing to talk with people who have issues with addictions.

While Matt is a very compassionate and understanding man, he does not have time for complaining. Matt has this anecdotal phrase whenever someone is complaining about how hard their life is: “I got 3 words for ya, GET OVER IT.”

Matt really is very patient and walks with people through their struggles. The ministry is called “Restoration Community”.

Bad weather seems to invite some of the most unique situation for the coffeeshop. It’s mostly about who decides to still patron in spite of the weather.

One particular bitterly cold day, Pastor Steve opened the coffeeshop and gave away free coffee that day. The people that visited that day were from the homeless population in the community. That day was a special kind of fellowship as they shared their harrowing stories of what they did overnight as it was freezing. They were happy to have a place to get in out of the cold if only for a while.

Free Coffee On a Very Cold Day

It's a Happening Place

The employees at The Edge Coffeehouse have very creative ideas on how to connect people. They host comedians, music concerts, game nights and more.

Coffeewith a Cop

It’s our calling at the coffeehouse to create a space that can bridge those gaps that exist in our city. It’s those opportunities that help people grow in relationships and ultimately benefits the community. A great example of that is a recent event called “Coffee With A Cop”. The turnout was great and policemen as well as the local community had an opportunity to meet and have good discussions over a cup of coffee.

Get Yourself Some Love

There are so many moving stories that each and every employee at the coffeeshop have to share. Their love for people from all walks of life is so evident in their business model, in their outreach to the community, and even in the meaningful connections they make through conversation and service. If you live in the DFW area, stop in and have a cup of coffee and strike up a conversation. You will be glad you did!