PROFILES

WORDS Tara Crutchfield

PHOTOGRAPH Amy Sexson

Life Unfiltered

It would be fair to say Bartow’s newest coffee house started in a Brooksville field – the idea for it did, anyway. CEO and Creative Director of Unfiltered Coffee, Geanie Folder, worked in a nursing home for most of her life. A fierce creative, Geanie always kept a “vintage side hustle” upcycling clothing and furniture with her company Rebel Juju.

THE BEATNIK EXCHANGE IS BORN

When her last child left home, she left her job at the nursing home and started the Beatnik Exchange. Like many of Geanie’s ideas, the Beatnik Exchange was unapologetic, free-spirited, eclectic and kismet that gathered folks of the artistic and innovative variety. Geanie explained her idea to friend and owner of Vintage Warehouse in Lakeland, Mendy Michalec. Geanie was dreaming of an annual artisan-driven market. The plan was to keep the market one-third farm to table food, one-third artisan, and one-third vintage. Mendy cheered on the idea and said Vintage Warehouse would even sponsor the event, along with Robyn Story Designs.

The first-ever Beatnik Exchange took place on Geanie’s Brooksville farm in 2016. And that’s sort of where everything started for the magical Bartow coffee shop. “I kept gathering people – artful people – and we grew from there,” said Geanie. They started gathering artists as they took the market to events like Sun n’ Fun. A few years in, Geanie and her Beatnik Exchange partner and dear friend, Luke Dickerson decided to open Luka Blue Vintage next door to Vintage Warehouse.

Coffee was central to Geanie’s vision. “How many deals, and friendships, and sorrows, and celebrations have people had over a cup of coffee?” she said. She met Lisbeth Pacheco and Jolian Rios, the founders of Ethos Coffee Roasters and started serving their fair-trade coffee at Luka Blue Vintage.

THIS IS IT

After a year, Luke decided to open a real estate company, Luke Blue, LLC and Geanie decided to get back to her fashion roots and nurture that aspect of her creativity for a while. The pair closed their Lakeland location. Looking for a private space to sew in, along with a painting studio for her friend, Linda Cassels-Hofmann, the two met with the landlord that owns the Stuart Building to look at office spaces. They rented an office space and the landlord, whom Geanie described as “such a great friend, such a visionary,” had a space he wanted to show her for a future shop. Earlier that day, she told him, “If I’m going to do this thing, I’m going to do it right – I have to find the right building. When that comes to me, I’ll know it.” The moment they walked through the back door, Geanie turned to Linda and said, “This is it.”

“The spirit of Bartow and the spirit in this building drove me from that day to come here and open this place,” she said. “It just chose me.” The 120-year-old building has lived many incarnations, Geanie found out during a trip to the historical society. It was first a hardware store carrying a selection of groceries and dry goods. Next door to Unfiltered is The Wine Stable, originally a livery stable. According to Geanie, folks would leave their horse and buggy next door at the livery stable and come do their shopping. One-sixty South Broadway Avenue has also been a furniture company, grocery store, and auto parts office.

Geanie and her landlord collaborated to open and renovate the space. “I say that very lightly because really the building did it, the building told me,” she said. “I stood in one corner and I said ‘Okay, here’s what we’re going to do here…’ and we just kept chronologically moving around the building and it kept happening. […] I know that sounds strange, but it is so true,” she said. “I didn’t set out with this grand plan on paper.” There were a few things she was certain of. “I knew it would be earthy, I knew it would be open. I knew downstairs I would have to keep my hand down on the color palette, but equally, I knew upstairs I could bring every color to the moon.”

The Unfiltered creative director knew she wanted to have a bar. “I wanted to model it like a home,” she said. She asked herself, ‘If you came to my home, what would I do? How would I treat you? How would I serve you?’ Well, she would serve you off of one of a kind pottery plates and mugs made by other artists. “Ninety-five percent of what was used in the store came from my personal collection that I procured over the years,” complete with kitchen equipment and silverware courtesy of the Lakeland Yacht Club, according to Geanie.

Even the bookshelves for their in-house bookstore, The Unbound Bookery, were made with wood recycled from doors, made by Luke Dickerson. Geanie paused and thought about the space. “It has been a collection of goods, a collection of people, a collection of art.” The food and drink offered at Unfiltered were not an afterthought. Ethos

- CONTINUED ON PAGE 25 -

Coffee Roasters out of Lakeland continues to provide the joe and Unfiltered has partnered with Uncle Nick’s Bagels, and Got Candy & More. Some treats are baked in-house – like their gourmet waffles.

THE RIGHT STUFF

“Every little detail fell in place here,” she said. Like the stained-glass front door she found in St. Pete, created by an artist in 2011 that had never been hung. The tile on the bar is from Miami. She drove there and dug the tile out of someone’s backyard, which had been there for some 40 years. “The whole building, little by little, was built like that.”

“The right stuff just shows up,” she said. “Along with the talent we have here.” Like her friend and performing artist, Sandi Silverman who she met at a photoshoot at her Brooksville farm. “Sandi planned and took a year to curate all her books and put a bookstore in [the shop],” said Geanie. The Unbound Bookery is a gem mine of books spanning genres and generations.

The interior of the shop has all but a conventional vibe. From the carefully curated pages lining the shelves of The Bookery, to the mismatched furniture, a plush chair on a hanging platform, art abounding, and nooks and crannies ideal for a chat with a friend or a moment to yourself with a piping cup of coffee.

The murals were painted by Linda Cassels-Hofmann. Painting for over 40 years in Polk County, Linda is versed in everything from painting, paper hanging, plastering, murals, faux finish, craftsmanship, and is “experienced in all types of the decorative arts, specializing in trompe l’oeil.” In a nook closest to the aqua lava lamp of a stained glass entrance, is a mural by Cassels-Hofmann depicting two stone women with flowers and greenery sprouting from their heads like every blooming idea that grew Unfiltered into what it has become. Other murals depict Edgar Allen Poe, an Alice in Wonderland themed bathroom, and a hippopotamus they call Phil on the back door. CasselsHofmann, with her business, Castles in the Air, will be one of the four resident artists working out of the second-floor studio at Unfiltered. “Castles in the Air means to daydream or imagine,” said Cassels-Hofmann. She has always liked painting whatever people can dream up.

A BIT OF BARTOW MAGIC

On March 6, 2020, Geanie Folder and her son, the coowner/ COO of Unfiltered, Tray Towels saw a line around the block for the shop’s grand opening. “Bartow is so beautiful. It’s not me, it’s not the people who are here with me like Linda and Sandi, truly, this whole thing surrounds us in Bartow,” she said.

The grand opening crowd has been but one of the ways the community has embraced the indie coffee house. After closing their doors in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Geanie racked her brain for ways to keep the burgeoning business afloat. It came to her to do what she knew best – art kits! The morning after posting the art kits online, she woke up to around 45 orders from locals. “Bartow has been so good to us in that way,” said Geanie. “It’s magic.” Humbled by her experience downtown, Geanie added, “In all the entrepreneurial things that I’ve done that have led up to this – and there have been a lot – never have I felt so loved and embraced and loved upon. It’s incredible.”

AN ARTIST HAVEN

Ascending the stairs of the off-beat coffee shop will be a new experience for Unfiltered patrons as the second floor just finished renovations. “It’s as if you took Pinterest and dropped it in the middle of the floor up there. It’s like an artist’s haven,” said Geanie. Whitewashed brick walls, a rainbow explosion of colors, a claw foot tub for photography, pottery studio, paint studio, and working space for four area artists. “Every inch up there is art,” she said. Among these artists are metalsmith Cassie Bock, mixed media artist Danita Lyn, textile artist, Kimberly Boothe, and painter Linda Cassels-Hofmann. Three other artists sell their art at the shop as well.

Upon reopening post-COVID-19, the shop will offer an assortment of classes from Geanie and the resident artists. Geanie eventually wants to host outside artists to come and stay at the studio as well. This second floor of Unfiltered will offer space for birthday parties, bridal and baby showers, and overflow seating for the coffee shop.

COFFEE & CONNECTIONS

Unfiltered is more philosophy than name. “People are always apologizing. ‘I’m sorry about what I have on today. I’m sorry about my car, I’m sorry about my house, I should have picked up,’” she said. “Why are we spending our lives apologizing for the ways we choose to live?”

Geanie aims to empower people to live their life unfiltered – a way of life she has refined. “I’m one of those people, probably to my detriment, I don’t really care what people think,“ she said. “My life has never been too much worrying about what other people think. […] I’ve always had a good peace of mind with that.” Geanie says she would like to see five stores in five years. “I’m just putting that out into the universe and if that’s what’s meant to be, that’s what’s going to happen.”

As for Unfiltered Bartow, Geanie Folder will keep forging connections. “I wanted this to be a place of connection. I wanted this to be a safe place where people could come, have a cup of coffee, make art if that’s what they want to do, read a book, get on their computer if they work from home and just connect,” said Geanie. “Connect here with this building, in the same way I connected with it, and with all of us artists, and connect with the community.”

Unfiltered Coffee 160 S Broadway Ave, Bartow, FL www.unfilteredbartow.com FB @UnfilteredBartow IG @unfiltered_bartow

Ethos Coffee Supports Women-Led Co-op

“It all probably goes back to me growing up as a little girl in Guatemala,” began Lisbeth Pacheco. That little girl in Guatemala grew familiar with the unkind sting of inequality. She would help with household chores when her brothers didn’t have to. “I had to make up their beds, serve them food, and clean after them,” she said. She can remember asking adults at three or four years old, “Why do you treat me differently?”

‘Because you are a girl,’ they would tell her. “From that moment, it instilled in me this desire to make things better and to make things a little fairer and more just.” Lisbeth left Guatemala to study abroad and eventually come to the United States. “I know we are not at a place of total equality, but I would say it’s fairly close,” she said. She saw economic advantages, freedoms, prosperity, and abundance here and wanted to champion women to achieve those things.

Lisbeth first learned of the town of Poaquil through a man who grew up there, Gerson Morales. She and this son of a Poaquil coffee farmer crossed paths in college. They ran into each other sometime later and got to talking. He told her about the poor town he was from with rough unpaved roads. He even suggested they switch to producing something other than coffee as they weren’t getting much for it. Morales asked Lisbeth what she had been up to. “Well, actually… I’m starting a coffee company,” she said.

The timing was serendipitous. Lisbeth and her husband and cofounder of Ethos Coffee Roasters, Jolian Rios, visited Poaquil for the first time in 2015. Backed by the credibility of her schoolmate, they sparked an ongoing partnership that would revitalize the town.

LEADING THROUGH ACTION

“Part of me sees herself in a lot of them and then a part of me has this thirst for making things a little bit better,” said Lisbeth of the women farmers. “If I could devote my life to one thing, it would be to create that little opportunity, make that little difference that makes them be able to go to school or just have a role model or know that it’s possible for them to be leaders – that it’s possible for them to be the ones in charge.”

As small business owners, Lisbeth and Jolian want to inspire change, to create that “little opportunity” where they can. “There’s something to be said about thinking big, but always starting small and being very targeted,” she said. And what a change Ethos has inspired. In 2017, they sourced about five bags (roughly 500 pounds) of coffee from Poaquil. In 2019, they ordered three pallets (4500 pounds) from the Guatemalan co-op. “Actions speak louder than words, that’s it,” said Lisbeth. Instead of speaking about what they would do, Ethos led with actions (there is a language barrier as well with many of them speaking only Kaqchikel). Lisbeth told the farmers that she would pay them the highest price she could, while still making it work for her business, factoring in her costs. “Our goal is always to maximize the volume that we do because it’s through that volume that we can support the farmers,” she said. If Ethos can grow their volume, they can have more partnerships like the one they have in Guatemala.

Lisbeth explained, “From the beginning, we said that economic opportunity is going to empower you to make changes and have greater economic development and we are trusting you to make the best decision about this money. What do you want to do with it? Do what you think is best.” In late 2015, the Poaquil coffee farmers started a women-led cooperative called Cooperativa La Asuncion. Though the co-op is very woman-forward, it has not always been this way. Many of the farmers are families, husbands and wives. When Lisbeth and Jolian first came to discuss the price with the farmers, decision-making was deferred to the husbands. They were surprised that Lisbeth was the more vocal of the couple. Surprised and inspired.

When the Ethos founders returned, it was the women who wanted to handle the money. Their husbands agreed and say it’s better now that the women are in leadership. “The dynamic in that town [Poaquil] is very different from a lot of other Guatemalan towns. If you were to see how we have official meetings with them, it’s the women that step up and present.” Before, they didn’t keep records and had no idea how much it cost them to produce a pound of green coffee. This is an issue in many rural countries, said Lisbeth – farmers don’t keep track of their cost and do not assign a price to their labor. “They are used to being price takers, not price setters,” she said. “Changes like [knowing their cost to produce] are empowering them.”

The rugged roads in Poaquil have since been paved, opening opportunities for further commerce and trading. “The main thing that has changed for them as a cooperative is that now they have their own coffee processing facility,” said Lisbeth. Due to the premiums Ethos agreed to pay the co-op, and their documentation of cost and accounting, they were able to get a loan from the bank with fair terms and low-interest rates. Between 80 and 90 percent of the co-op’s profit comes from what they sell to the Lakeland coffee roasters. The farmers (and the bank) are secure knowing that this massive portion of their harvest will always be paid at an excellent price. “A lot of farmers can’t say that. They don’t have a buyer that will always buy from them, so every year they have to scramble,” she said.

The bank loan afforded them a brand-new drying patio made of cement poured at an angle, so moisture can trickle down and the coffee can dry under the sun. They also purchased a depulper to do their own processing. “This saves them from having to drive all that coffee somewhere to be processed which is also risky. During that transit time if you’re not careful, if it gets too hot, some of those cherries can ferment. And if it ferments,

On February 14, Jolian and Lisbeth brought ten Ethos customers with them to visit Cooperativa La Asuncion during the peak of harvest season – a five-day trip that had been in the works for the better part of a year. “We visited the cooperative, we spent a whole day with them,” said Lisbeth. “They killed some of their chickens for us which was a very, very high honor. This is something they do when they have an important guest, or they want to celebrate something, or do something nice for somebody.”

They ate a delicious meal together, picked coffee, and toured the facilities. Lisbeth joked that in the half-hour their group harvested, some people barely had a pound. They would not make that much money in Guatemala, she laughed. Lisbeth scrolled through her phone, showing us photos of the trip. “These are the bosses,” she said of a group of women. “They are the ones in charge.” Lisbeth pointed to a woman, Telma Tubac, president of the co-op, explaining that she and two others, Margarita Alvarez and Estela Morales received scholarships from Emory University in Atlanta last year to do training in the U.S. The latter two women traveled to the U.S. and visited Lisbeth and Jolian, staying at their home.

The oldest member and matriarch of the co-op is a woman in her 70s named Octaviana. She is the head of all harvesting. Lisbeth said confidently that no one knows more about harvesting on the farm than Octaviana, whose age doesn’t seem to slow her any. “If you were to see how fast she moves in those fields, it’s amazing.” Of each of the women young and old that Lisbeth sees a bit of herself in, Octaviana resonates with her the most. “She has given us a lot of the legitimacy for everybody else to follow. If she’s behind it, everybody will get behind it,” said Lisbeth. “From that first time, she said, ‘I can see in your eyes that

you’re being truthful to me, I believe you. We’re going to do this, we’re going to try. I know that all you can do is try, you cannot do more than that.’”

Indeed, Lisbeth and Jolian and the farmers in Poaquil could not do more than try, but try they did. The phrase win-win seems too cheap of a way to describe the impact they’ve had. The partnership has been prosperous for the town, opening doors for growth and opportunity. It has also been beneficial for Ethos Coffee Roasters, and for all of their customers who can regularly enjoy a cup of ethically sourced, fair-trade coffee.

‘BECAUSE YOU ARE A GIRL’

Ethos is working to form a new partnership with another small group in Colombia in the town of Planadas, in the department of Tolima. “They have great women representation as well – women leadership. That’s one of the things that Poaquil also has,” said Lisbeth.

“We hope to keep growing and as we keep growing, one of our first priorities is to keep supporting the people we made a commitment to,” said Lisbeth. Now in their fifth year working with Poaquil, the Ethos couple want to see them progress and grow alongside them. Ethos has committed to buy about 8,000 lbs of coffee from them this year. “They worked a lot for it,” she said. “They themselves say, ‘Wow, you really saw in us, something that we hadn’t seen, and now we see it. We see that we’re capable, we see that we can do it. We see that we don’t have to depend on anybody else – we can do it.’”

That kind of earnest belief in capability can’t be spoken or bought or exported across borders – it must be acted upon. Lisbeth believes in this women-led co-op. She knows what they are capable of and she acted on that – perhaps because she is a girl.