There’s a brand new coffee house in Topeka that’s taking coffee to new heights. It’s Elevation Coffee & Roastery. Inspired by a local mom whose daughter suffered from food allergies, Elevation Coffee & Roastery offers clean, healthy, organic coffee, smoothies, and food designed to help you feel better.
“The idea came to me several years ago,” said Chelsea Fisher, founder and co-owner with her partner Casey Campbell. Her daughter, June, started having seizures when she was six months old. “Over time, we found that making changes to her diet like cutting out grains and sugar made a huge difference,” she explained. “It took about a year, but now she has been seizure-free for over seven years. That really woke me up to food and how healing it can be.”
All of the coffee and food served at Elevation Coffee & Roastery is allergy-friendly. They use the freshest, hand-selected ingredients, organic milks, and natural syrups. To complement their coffee, they serve pastries, muffins, donuts, and cookies from Shana Cakes, a local baker. All baked goods are gluten-free, dairy-free and nut-free. They also offer smoothies and their signature lavender lemonade which are 100% organic and gluten-free. “We won’t serve anything in the coffee house that we wouldn’t serve in our house,” Chelsea promised.
Besides bringing healthy foods to their fellow Topekans, Chelsea and Casey had another reason to open their coffee house. They want to give back to the community. Last year, their daughter, Aspen Campbell was diagnosed with Craniosynostosis, a rare birth defect that required expensive medical care including surgery. To help raise money, they started a Go Fund Me account. The Topeka community jumped on board and helped them raise the money needed. Aspen, who will be 19 months old soon, got the surgery she needed and is recovering well.
“The support we got from this community was amazing,” Chelsea said. “We just wanted to do something to pay them back.” They created a special coffee called Aspen’s Blend and sold it as a fundraiser for her surgery. It went over really well, so they kept it going. Today, all funds raised from the sale of Aspen’s Blend go to support other children with medical needs in the community. “The business was always going to have some sort of fundraising aspect from the beginning,” Chelsea said. “We thought originally of the veterans since Casey is a veteran, but then this happened and we thought it was a worthwhile cause too.”
They source their coffee beans from all over the world - Mexico, Nicaragua, Tanzania, Italy - and roast them in small batches. Most of the beans are organic. “Casey does the roasting and has had to learn the bean language,” Chelsea laughs. “Enzo, our Italian bean supplier, has a thick accent, so it’s been challenging.” The combination of organic, fresh roasted beans combined with healthy ingredients gives Elevation Coffee its crowd-pleasing flavor. “You can taste the difference,” Chelsea said. “We’re not snobby, organic, stuck up people,” she added laughing. “We’re normal people. We just want to offer something good to the community.”
Located just off 21st & Wanamaker on Brandywine Lane, Elevation Coffee & Roastery is open every day from 7 am to 2 pm with happy hour from noon till 2 pm. Check out their Facebook page for daily specials and updates plus a list of their ten new seasonal coffee flavors including caramel apple, cinnamon bun, and white chocolate pumpkin. Stop in for coffee that will make you feel good for more reasons than one.