Help Elitist Coffee Stay Open!

UPDATE: Help Elitist Stay Open!

We, Elitist Coffee, are a local, black, and family-owned business in South Orange, NJ.

Our coffee shop has been on track to relocate to a larger venue at 154 Valley Street for almost a year. However, due to misinformation regarding our parking variance from the town and our legal permission to re-open, our coffee and our presence in the South Orange community has ceased to exist. For months, it was repeatedly and clearly expressed that we were on schedule to relocate after our expansion had already been slowed and set back by the numerous complications that came with COVID-19.

According to the town, the culmination of our 5-space parking lot; the five-tiered municipal parking lot located 100 ft away from our new venue with 147 spots available to the public; and the free parking along Valley, Third, and Academy Streets are not enough to allow our new storefront to open. South Orange has told us after we have already relocated, renovated, and are ready to open that they NOW require us to obtain a total of 20 “approved” parking spots to legally open our place of business to the community we have already been serving coffee to for 6 years.

This lack of information has resulted in us being unable to open and turning away so many of our regular customers at our doors on a daily basis. We need your help! We need you to:

1. Please help us raise money to support our legal interests to combat these unfair requirements.

2. Please sign our petition to convince the town to let us reopen, continue our family-owned business, and serve the community we have loved and treasured.

Our coffee brings people together, help us continue building our beloved community one cup at a time.

From your neighborhood coffee shop,

Elitist Coffee