Coffee with a Purpose at Sacred Grounds Café

By Rev. Phillip C. Huber

If you have walked near the corner of M Street and Delaware Avenue lately, you may have noticed some heavenly scents in the air. The long awaited Sacred Grounds Café: Coffee with a Purpose, at 222 M St. SW, is now open and offers the neighborhood a modestly priced and cozy dining alternative. 

The café is located within the beautiful new St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church at the corner of Delaware Avenue and M Street, and is managed by Marie and Cathy Stanley, both of whom have a long history of managing local businesses and are residents of Southwest. They bake all the amazing tarts, cakes and bread from scratch onsite. Sacred Grounds brews “Rise Up Coffee” which is locally sourced, fair trade and organic. Customers can purchase a bag of coffee to brew at home too. Full loaves and take-home boxes of coffee are also available for your catering needs.  

Why “Coffee with a Purpose?” Pastor Huber relayed the following story: 

A customer recently came into Sacred Grounds and asked, “What’s the ‘purpose’ in the slogan ‘Coffee with a Purpose?’ The purpose begins with the coffee we sell. It is fair trade and organic. Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD), our coffee purveyor, has a personal relationship with the Central American farmers that grow the beans. They make regular visits to the area to make sure the fair trade promise to the farmers is kept. Sacred Grounds exists to provide good coffee, good food, and exceptional hospitality to our Southwest neighborhood and surrounding areas. It also exists to provide a gathering place for friends and neighbors in the beautiful setting of St. Matthew’s building and outdoor courtyard, and strives to become a “town center” for Southwest. Sacred Grounds also plans to hold special community events and entertainment. We held a watch party for the 7^th game of the World Series and are planning another festive watch party for the Super Bowl using our four big screen televisions (two 80” and two 70”). All of this helps to form the ‘purpose’ of Coffee with a Purpose. 

The café is open Monday-Friday from 7:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.; on Saturday from 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.; and on Sunday from 8:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. When the weather warms up, Sacred Grounds will extend the hours of operation to later in the evening. 

For more information, contact sacredgrounds@stmatthewdc.org.