The GriNders

TWO FRIENDS FROM GARY, INDIANA, HAD A DREAM: TO BRING PREMIUM COFFEE TO THE SUPERMARKET— AND HELP ATRISK YOUTH.

- Michael Callahan

In the beginning, there was coffee. A lot of coffee-like, gallons and gallons, consumed on the many business trips Pernell Cezar took working in merchandising at Target in the 2010s. "Coffee," he says, "is what fueled me."

It wasn't the only thing. While at Target, Cezar saw the barriers that entrepreneurs, especially Black and Brown ones, faced in getting access to capital. Long possessed of an entrepreneurial streak himself, in 2017 he approached his best friend, Rod Johnson, whom he'd met growing up in hardscrabble Gary, Indiana, with an idea: How about they start a business together, one built on a mission to fund programs for at-risk kids, like the ones they'd been? And one day, when Cezar found himself in a high-end coffee shop, inspiration struck.