Alright, now the latte, do you want to throw the hot latte or ice latte?
Any plans for the weekend?
Hi, I'm David.
David James is still new to La Crosse, but he's loving it.
She's like, I didn't get it.
And I'm the owner of OO Coffee.
I love what I do. I love this place.
I love what this place means to a lot of people.
If this is the most complicated your day gets, that's going to be a great day, right?
When I can get somebody to fall in love with coffee,
or when I can get people to fall in love with the community,
I'm just happy.
David has happily fallen in love with his new community.
Just what he was seeking after a move from the big city of Denver.
Thank you. Have a good rest of your conference.
Growing up, he'd spent summers in rural Wisconsin.
My grandma passed away and me and my wife went to her funeral
and we just sat on my uncle's porch
and just listened to just quiet.
And in that conversation, we were just like,
what if we lived in a place this peaceful?
That quiet moment set in motion a move to Wisconsin.
This is just like the most beautiful area of the country.
We felt pulled here.
Okay.
Just finding this location to open his dream coffee shop was picture perfect.
We're right here.
David brought this painting from Denver where it had sat on his living room wall.
There he had been a champion barista, an owner of a coffee truck.
The landscape was painted by his grandmother decades ago
and it shows this view where today, O.O. coffee sits.
Something David took to heart.
I just think that it's fate.
I've been staring at this place my whole life.
Another thing that seemed just right to David was the name O.O.
Essentially it's named after my brother in a roundabout way.
Two hands make up the logo for O.O. coffee.
It's a tribute to David's brother.
Still want to share a beat with you guys.
I just made it.
Check it out.
As a musician and activist, he was known as Iggy Igloo.
In a nod to the brothers shared native Alaskan heritage.
He understood his path really early.
He knew he wanted to follow in the guidance of our ancestors from an early age.
He was at Standing Rock.
He was a water rights activist and he got colon cancer and stomach cancer
and then passed away a few years ago.
His signature tattoo went across his knuckles, spelling Iggy Igloo.
Me and a lot of my family, we all got this pinky tattoo to remember him,
which is the O.O. from Igloo on his knuckle.
O.O. became the name of the shop where David pays honor to Iggy.
Hey, do you want a latte?
So many things in this cafe are just shrines to him, basically,
including the activism that I do.
David maintains a food pantry,
donates coffee service, and insists on paying a fair wage.
My barista is the highest paid barista in the state of Wisconsin.
I thought he made a typo at first because I'm like, there's no way that
this is a starting wage for a part-time barista.
He's also banned tipping,
and you're all set, while still elevating service.
You've got to pay a wage that respects the person's time.
But second, you have to make sure that that employee is respected here.
And then third, you make a promise to your customers that you're going to give good service.
Mary?
The promise of O.O. Coffee is the product of David's intentions,
to start anew in a peaceful place, to honor his brother,
and create community around his love of coffee.
Being able to see myself in what I produce is really important,
and I think that we've lost that.
It's something that I can look at every day and really be proud of.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.