Specialty java house Light House Coffee is opening Friday inside a strip center on Lee Drive near Highland Road, but you can get a sneak peek of the place by checking out this week’s 225 Dine e-newsletter.
Founded by owners Amber and Steve Elworth in 2017, Light House Coffee serves as a place to help refugees find a community in a new country.
Amber Elworth was teaching English at the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Baton Rouge when she noticed that many refugees who came through the diocese’s resettlement program were struggling to find work.
“Having spent hours with individual refugees from countries around the globe, Elworth was invested,” 225 Dine says. “She wanted to help—to create a place where refugees could not only work but hone their communication skills, integrate themselves into American culture and find a family and community in a new home.”
Light House has Baton Rouge’s first employment roster specifically tailored to include refugees. “Stepping through the doors, you’re immediately transported away from the crowded strip mall and the noise of Lee Drive into a wide-open, bright, roomy space, airy and fragrant with coffee beans—fair trade, shipped in from Topeca Coffee in Tulsa, Oklahoma,” 225 Dine writes.
The coffee house offers pastries from local bakers and standard specialty drinks like cappuccinos, lattes, macchiatos and cortados, as well as shots of flavors and a selection of milk alternatives. And as for the baristas and back of house staff making it all happen?
“Light House’s small team already employs three, with an eventual goal of up to half the staff composed of refugees,” 225 Dine writes. “Even local refugees who can’t physically work in the shop get a little help from Light House thanks to the Hope Shop, a small retail section offering candles, weavings, home goods, jewelry and other trinkets made by refugees.”
Read more, and be sure to sign up for the free 225 Dine e-newsletter to get your fill of local culinary news each week.
