Washed Up Coffee at La Fonda Street in Detroit. All images courtesy of Washed Up Coffee.
A fresh cafe called Washed Up Coffee is now open in Detroit’s West Village neighborhood, offering scratch-made drinks and a constantly updated selection of roasters and coffees.
Industry veterans Emily Potter and Amélie Boulanger are the co-founders, applying decades of combined coffee experience to the clean-slate venture.
The shop shares a space with Latin American fusion restaurant La Fonda Street, which offers seating towards the back. Customers stopping by just for coffee can sit on a sunlit bench opposite a coffee bar fronted with hexagonal terrazzo tile.
A custom yellow, red and blue La Marzocco Linea PB AV espresso machine helps set Washed Up’s bold, playful tone while celebrating diversity — both of people and of coffee.
“The lineup will stay consistently diverse, from origin to processing method to roaster,” Potter and Boulanger told Daily Coffee News via email. “We want our customers to be able to taste and experience coffees from roasters and producers from around the world.”
Washed Up occupies about 500 square feet toward the front of the house. Restaurant and cafe hours overlap only from noon to 3 p.m. each afternoon, with distinct ordering and service points.
The La Fonda Street kitchen provides breakfast burritos and sandwiches. A Mahlkönig E65 and a Mazzer Philos grind for espresso drinks, while an EK43 grinds for manual Kalita Wave pourovers. A Fetco 2232 NG brews larger hot and ice-flashed cold batches.
Washed Up’s opening coffee slate includes: Metric Coffee from Chicago; Valor Coffee from Dunwoody, Georgia; ReAnimator Coffee from Philadelphia; Methodical Coffee from Greenville, South Carolina; Panther Coffee from Miami; and Dessert Oasis Coffee Roasters from Detroit, where Boulanger also works as director of sales and education.
“DOCR has been nothing but supportive and celebratory of the additional coffee venture,” the duo told DCN. “We love them and look forward to carrying their coffee on our opening lineup.”
New shelves highlight retail coffees from all the roasters alongside glassware, coffee mugs and Washed Up’s pouty-duck-branded apparel. Tins filled to order with rotating beans sell for $25 initially, then $15 per refill.
“We don’t ever plan to roll out a roasting program,” the life and business partners jointly said. “One of our favorite things about being able to serve a multiroaster line up is working with folks who have made an impact on us along our own coffee journeys. This can be from ‘one of our favorite cups we’ve ever had’ to the ones who have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome and loved.”
Washed Up reciprocated that love last weekend at a grand opening party featuring a barista throwdown, music, mingling and tacos.
Washed Up Coffee Founders Emily Potter and Amélie Boulanger.
Washed Up Coffee is located at 8016 Kercheval Ave. in Detroit.
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
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