Community Partnership Means Saturday Coffee

(Crystal A. Proxmire)

 

The biggest complaint that Frank Lanzkron-Tamarazo gets about Chazzano Coffee is that his tasting room at 1737 E. Nine Mile is closed on Saturdays.  That is a holy day of worship for people of the Jewish faith, so Lankron-Tamarazo keeps the doors closed and is off leading services for his church – the Congregation Hava Nashira in Farmington Hills.  Great for God, but what about the dozens of customers who want to enjoy his fresh-roasted coffee each and every day, without having to brew it at home?

 

Fortunately Lankron-Tamarazo has come up with a solution.  He has begun partnering with other businesses, including the Aff. Café inside the Affirmations Community Center, to serve Chazzano Coffee and expresso.  The Aff Café serves expresso every day, and features a specialty flavor of coffee each Saturday.

 

“This way we get to give our customers a really good, unique coffee experience and introduce them to different flavors.  And hopefully we can be a place where Frank’s customers will come on the day he’s closed.  It’s a win-win for us both,” said Aff. Café Manager Julie Marcos. 

 

Chazzano’s opened up in 2009 with a community-connection intensive business plan.  He immediately joined the Ferndale Area Chamber of Commerce and began using members for every aspect of his business possible – including Alert Alarm for security, State of the Art Framing for the artwork, Craig Cesarone of C-Biz Computer Solutions for the cash register systems, and more.

 

On top of spending locally, Lanzkron-Tamarazo has been generous with his product.  Because Chazzano’s is a high-quality tasting room, they only serve the freshest blends.  However there is a lot of coffee that is still good that he does not want to sell in the store, so he donates it each week to the Community Housing Project to provide coffee to low-income families.  The chaff  - which is the skin the comes off the coffee bean when it’s roasted – is donated to urban farmers who use it to line chicken coops in Detroit.  And the used coffee grounds are given to a group that uses them for urban farming.

 

The Aff. Café connection also goes along with Lanzkron-Tamarazo’s support of diversity in the community.  His synagogue serves several gay Jewish families, and he provides coffee for the offices of the state-wide LGBT news weekly, Between the Lines and also for the Jewish Gay Network’s meetings.   Plus his coffee is now featured at Kahvi Coffee in Warren and Pizzeria Biga in Southfield.  Here in Ferndale Chazzano’s will be at Treat Dreams and Michcago Pizza.

 

The Aff. Café is located inside Affirmations Community Center at 290 W. Nine Mile, website: www.goaffirmations.org.   Chazzanos is at 1737 E. Nine Mile, website: www.chazzanocoffee.com.    

 

For more business news, turn to our Chamber and Business News page: www.ferndale115.com/chamber.html.