To mark its 25th anniversary, staff at The Sentient Bean rounded up a handful of statistics from the coffee shop’s quarter-century in business. The totals and milestones now hang on a wall inside the coffee shop.
But perhaps more significant than the numbers is the mission behind them. Through 25 years, 5 million customers, 5 million compostable cups and 125,000 eggs, The Sentient Bean has maintained its focus on fair trade and local sourcing.
That commitment to sustainability was central to The Sentient Bean from the beginning, when Kristin Russell and Kelli Pearson founded the coffee shop in 2001. The pair, who met while attending college in Minnesota, have sought to support small-scale and lower-income farmers through their sourcing practices.
“Opening The Sentient Bean was about trying to be a business model of sustainable practices, environmentally and socially,” said Russell. “We’re trying to stretch how fair we can be to workers in a capitalist system.”
The pair eventually chose Savannah as the place to put those principles into practice.
As The Sentient Bean's reach expanded, Russell also became involved in other efforts centered on local agriculture and sustainable food. Raised on farms, she said she wanted to bring some of those principles into city life.
“After getting off the farm, I had an utter shock with the disposability of the world,” Russell said.
From the beginning, one principle was simple: Russell and Pearson hate waste.
Brighter Day Natural Foods next door has long shared a similar emphasis on sustainable and locally sourced products. Russell acquired the market in 2019, further connecting the neighboring businesses. Even the wine shop beyond the other wall of The Sentient Bean, despite not being directly associated with the growing stores, is an advocate for ethical sourcing. So, the whole east end of Park Avenue on Forsyth has, since 2001, become quite the haven for mindful shoppers and farmers alike.
Since 2009, Saturdays at Forsyth Park have added another piece to that local-food network: the Forsyth Farmers' Market, which Russell helped found with five other women. The market requires that all goods sold be grown within a 200-mile radius of Savannah and has graduated from a simple morning market into a nonprofit supporting local farmers and expanding access to locally grown food. Local producers such as Joseph Fields, Southern Swiss, Bootleg Farms and Gannon Organics have worked with the market, The Sentient Bean and Brighter Day.
Some former Sentient Bean employees have carried similar ideas into their own work. Among them is Telly Justice, chef and co-owner of HAGS in New York City's East Village, which has offered a “pay what you can” tasting menu.
A place like The Sentient Bean inevitably attracts the type of Savannahian that considers very deeply everything they do, and so the coffee shop has become quite the work club as well. On any day, one can observe a sprinkling of writers and digital artists hard at work on their laptops or a huddle of art students nosediving into their sketchbooks. The western wall has long served as a rotating gallery for local painters and illustrators, and the open floor plan has hosted literary and music events to the south end of Forsyth. In the evenings, after the espresso machine quiets, the cofee shop take on another role: performance venue.
Twenty-five years after Russell and Pearson opened The Sentient Bean, the coffee shop's influence can be seen in more than the numbers posted on its wall. Its emphasis on local sourcing and sustainability has become intertwined with neighboring businesses, the Forsyth Farmers' Market and the community that gathers around the south end of the park.
Five million customers and 125,000 eggs may help measure the Bean's longevity. Its founders, though, have spent a quarter-century trying to measure success another way: by asking where food comes from, who produced it and what gets left behind.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: 'The Sentient Bean' marks 25 years of fair trade | Exclusive
