When John Forlini posts about a fresh roast on Facebook, customers set their alarms. By the time Che Cosa Coffee opens the next morning, the line is already forming. Jamaican Blue Mountain. Hawaiian Kona. Whatever the special flavor, it rarely survives past noon.
Before Che Cosa, John was the youngest marketing manager at Little Caesars, back before HOT-N-READY saved the chain. He embraced the new pizza’s potential instantly, even donning a toga and waving a $5 pizza sign in an Alabama parking lot. That instinct to spot a trend and make it fun eventually led John to leave corporate life and open his own coffeehouse in Mount Clemens in 1997, long before Starbucks reached Michigan.
Even the name has a story. “Che Cosa is Italian for ‘what is it?’” John says. “When I was under construction, people kept stopping to ask what it was going to be. Everybody thought I was just the kid doing the labor—one person even tried to hire me to paint their business. Since I had no real plan beyond ‘do coffee,’ I named it Che Cosa.”
The irony? John didn’t even drink coffee at first. “I was a Pepsi and Mountain Dew guy,” he laughs. That changed when he started teaching. “Standing in front of a class, there’s nothing better than having something warm in your hand. Eventually, it became coffee. Now I drink one cup a morning, and I roast for everyone else.”
Today, Forlini balances life as an assistant principal with running Che Cosa. (And yes, he supplies coffee for the teachers’ lounge.) Both roles, he says, come down to the same thing: nurturing people and keeping the community engaged.
John roasts in small batches, so fresh that customers tease him about not printing roast dates. “Everything’s gone within a week,” he shrugs. He calls roasting both an art and a science. “The computer on my roaster never got connected. I listen for the first crack, I smell, I pull beans to check color. After all these years, you just know.”
Che Cosa’s best-seller is the house Cosa blend, “strong but not bitter,” John notes. Then he adds with a smile, “The only thing bitter around here is me sometimes.” For the adventurous, there are flavored coffees from Blueberry Crumble to Bailey’s Irish Cream—all sugar-free and gluten-free. “The flavor’s in the smell,” he explains. “Add just a touch of sweetness, and it blooms.”
Limited roasts regularly sell out within hours. “I don’t jack up the prices,” he says. “I want coffee to stay affordable.” It’s a philosophy that’s earned him loyalty—not to mention lines that snake out the door.
That loyalty also led to a partnership with Randazzo Fresh Market. “Sonny Randazzo told me people would come to his house, taste our coffee, and steal the bag off his counter. Now we’re in all three Randazzo stores, and I’m exclusive to them. Loyalty matters.”
Though Che Cosa started as a roasting hub with little seating, customers wanted more. Now the shop is adding chairs, tables, and early hours. “Saturdays especially—it’s family,” Forlini says. “Everybody knows everybody. We tease each other. It’s like home.”
It’s like home for John in a very real way. His wife, Deanna, just joined the business after retiring from Ford. And their eighth-grader Delilah, bakes chocolate chip cookies from scratch to serve up at the coffeehouse on Saturdays.
That homeyness has been a hallmark way since the beginning. “I used to watch people on their first date and think, ‘Yep, that’s a first date,’” John remembers. “Years later, they come in on their wedding day to take photos in the place they met. Now some of them come back with their kids.”
And then there are the characters. Like the woman who wondered why her coffee tasted like water—after she tried to brew whole beans (“pellets,” she called them). Or Forlini himself, who admits he always smells like the coffees he roasts; today, it’s pancakes and vanilla. “It’s in my pores,” he laughs. “Even when I shower, people can smell it on me.”
For all the fun, one principle guides him. “Be nice,” Forlini says simply. “You can’t be angry if you’re drinking coffee.”
Maybe that’s why the lines form after every Facebook post. It’s not just for the flavor of the week. It’s also for the man who insists that coffee, like life, should never be bitter…just full of flavor.
You can order Che Cosa Roasting Co. coffee online (checosacoffee.com), or drop in their store, at 24394 Crocker Blvd. in Clinton Township.
“Saturdays especially, it’s family. Everybody knows everybody…it’s like home.”
“You can’t be angry if you’re drinking coffee.”