Community pitches in thousands of dollars to save longtime West Seattle café



SEATTLE -- A beloved West Seattle coffee shop has been saved by its customers, after they pitched in to prevent developers from buying it.

The C&P coffee shop in West Seattle has been a welcoming home for people to grab a coffee, make new friends and listen to music from emerging artists.

Grinding the beans for that perfect cup of coffee is what Peter and his wife Cameron have been doing for 15 years.

“We’re just small business owners, we’re just grinding the small business,” said owner Peter Moores.

But, the daily grind these past few weeks served up a tall order. They needed to raise enough money to buy the land this Craftsman home sits on - worth more than one million dollars after it was threatened by a land sale.

When customers heard about it, they pitched in, raising more than $70,000 for a down payment.

“It’s incredibly humbling for my wife and I to be in the middle of all this,” said Moores.

Their customers say C&P has been a second home for them and they had to keep it open.

“I can walk here in the morning, in my pajamas which I sometimes do,” said Jordan Pierce who moved the the neighborhood seven months ago from Wisconsin.

Pierce says he felt at home when he walked into this coffee shop for the first time.

“You know when you come here you’re going to be in the company of friends,” said Charles Austin who is a regular here.

He says he feels like the adopted grandfather here and he’s got the stories to back up his 13 years of conversations over coffee,

“We have a chair over there, the blue chair,” said Austin. It’s where is friend Phil used to sit.

“I’m a former marine, he was a former marine, we’d sit and talk about what’s going on, he was a carpenter he used to fix things, and Phil just passed away.”

His coffee mates carved a hammer into his chair and Phil’s signature suspenders painted on the front.

“It’s a home for people,” said Austin, who added they held a celebration of life for Phil at the coffee shop where more than 200 people showed up.

Austin says the coffee shop owners are like family to him, hosting holiday get together and potlucks where people can come celebrate together. He says after his dog died, it’s the people here who helped comfort him.

“Not only do you get to play with the dogs, play with the kids, you have a lot of discussions of what’s happening in Washington in Olympia, and you grow together as a family,” said Austin.

And when you’re family, you stick together filling the pot with coffee money to keep the doors of the home open and the coffee pouring for years to come,