Photo: A group gathers in prayer inside the Christian-owned Drip Cafe in Denver as Communists and LGBTQ+ protesters rally outside in June 2023.
10/21/2024 The West (International Christian Concern) – ICC President Jeff King recently sat down with Jamie Sanchez, owner of the Drip Café in Denver, Colorado. After years of serving the homeless, Jamie and a team opened a Christian coffee shop last year to hire the homeless and working poor and provide a safe space for fellowship and camaraderie. The café has been targeted by a local communist group and other radicals. The following transcript is highlights from the conversation:
Jamie: For a couple years now, we’ve had a vision of helping individuals get off the street because our outreach events are very supply- and short-term need type of deal(s). Now that we have this going well and we can help people survive the winter here in Colorado, the next step is to take individuals and help them get off the street. We spent two years doing research and meeting with other ministries that were successful and kind of nitpicking like, “OK, what do we like about these? What do we not, what do we want to keep? How do we want to form our project?” And we came to a lot of realizations. The number one realization was that people need discipleship and people need fellowship. If people want to get out of homelessness, they have to have discipleship and fellowship. They need housing and they need a job, and they need financial advisory.
About a week prior to opening [the Drip Café coffee shop], a group calling themselves the Denver Communists began to protest that a Christian coffee shop was opening on Santa Fe Drive in the art district.
I couldn’t believe it because here I am trying to open a coffee shop to help individuals get out of homelessness. And I have a group suddenly blowing us up on social media saying, we hate gay people. And I’m like, “Whoa, whoa. Where did this come from?” Nothing has anything to do with each other. People (were) trying to put Google reviews in for the café before we even opened saying we hate gay people, and we fire gay people. We haven’t even opened yet.
This group shows up on opening day. Apparently, there’s a couple other groups involved, like the Antifa-type style and stuff like that. They show up with all kinds of signs. They were ready. They made signs with lies on them about who we were. They made up all kinds of flyers and posted them on the poles around the block. Every time there was a group of about 30 of them standing out in front of my tiny, the front of my shop is maybe 10 feet wide, right? Oh gosh, 30 people in front of there with signs and flags and all kinds of stuff with (a) bullhorn screaming. “The Drip Café does this. The drip café … don’t go in there,” and they’re scaring people away.
And so, it was just insane. I was like, “There’s no way that this is happening.” I come to find out after I try to research, and they won’t have a conversation with me until this day. All they do is scream in my face. I’ve tried talking to the leader there. I’ve tried talking to individuals. They don’t talk to me; they talk over me. They scream. They don’t want to have a conversation.
They found out we were owned by Recycle God’s Love. And then they went into recycle God’s Love “beliefs” page, and they find with the dozens of beliefs on there, they seek out the one verse that speaks about man being made for woman and homosexuality among other lists of sins being a sin. And so, because of that, they pulled that out and they’re enticing this LGBTQ+ crew group to come against us, which is actually really unfortunate, too, because they’re using this group. They’re acting like they love them, but they’re just using them for their own agenda to shut down a business. And a Christian business.
They were coming out every weekend on our busiest day of the week, which was Saturday, to purposely disrupt the business. Their goal that they stated clearly is to disrupt business, to shut us down so we can’t pay rent. And so that was their goal. They would show up on the busiest day of the week every week for the first few months, and they would also show up on the busiest day of the month, which is there’s an art walk that happens on the Santa Fe drive there. And so, all the shops come out and set out all their art and stuff and people, it’s like a little festival that’s supposed to be from looking at the reports from the previous coffee shop that was there before us. That’s the day that helps you make half your rent. That’s the one that keeps you out of the red.
They show up on that day during the busiest hours every single month to yell at all the customers. If someone walks in, they shame them and they’re like, “Boo, you’re a technical person.” All this stuff. It’s like, I just went in to use the bathroom. They’re getting yelled at just for walking in our coffee shop. As soon as they show up, our business is zero. Maybe 1% of what we should have happens during the time that they’re outside. So, they were coming every week and once a month. Then they stopped coming on Saturdays, but they’ve still come every single First Friday since the day we’ve opened. They were just here last week outside doing their thing again, making up all kinds of new lies, some of their newest lies (were) that we are Nazi people and we’re letting Nazis in our coffee shop, and apparently, I’m the first Hispanic Nazi, I guess.
The art walk is on the first Friday of each month. The first Friday of each month, about 5 to 8 (p.m.) is when it happens. That’s when we really want the church to show up and just pray. That’s what we’ve been doing is just praying. And let’s be real about it. The Drip Café is going to pass away. Eventually, I’m going to pass away. All of us are going to pass away. The word of God doesn’t pass away, but the people outside protesting against us, when they pass away, they’re going to go to hell. And that’s not what I want. I want those people to be saved. I want people to come in and pray that these lives be changed because how much better would it be if we had these people evangelizing for Christ and have a home in heaven? That’s what we really, really want. It breaks my heart that these people are out here, and they have a perception of Christ that is false, and I want them to see who Christ truly is.
Jeff: And come love on those people too. It’s the last thing they’re going to expect. And it says just a soft answer breaks the bone even for this crowd eventually. The thing is that the Lord can work even in these hearts and even with these people. I mean, unfortunately, this kind of protest should be shut down, but at the same time, these people need to be reached. That’s the real core of this thing. So, people should come out. What have you learned spiritually through all this?
Jamie: I’ve learned understanding of why there’s people who hate Christ even more than I used to. And the reasons behind that are because of man and nine out of 10 of the LGBTQ+ individuals that we’ve spoken to outside our doors mention, “Oh no, I thought my parents were Christian and they kicked me out of the house because I said I liked boys or whatever, or they hated me. They disowned me from the family in Denver. Or I went into church and instead of talking to me about this, they kicked me out of the church, and I wasn’t allowed back.” And then there’s these groups who physically attack gay people and stuff like that. So, this is their taste of what Christianity is in their eyes. And this is what the world and the media, the regular media shows you what Christianity is, and it’s false.
It’s a false Christianity. Jesus never hated anybody. He never attacked anybody physically. You didn’t see him punching people because when the Pharisees were in his face, that’s not the way Jesus acted. This man-made Christianity … this false Christianity has put a taste in their mouth of who Christ is. I’ve become empathetic to the fact that, man, if I was indoctrinated that way, I would feel that same way. If this is all I knew of Jesus, this is what I would think of Jesus. Thank God, God has shown me who he really is outside of all this craziness. But I feel like that’s part of our job now, is to show them who Christ really is. And we are not going on some sort of attack. We are just standing firm. We’re standing firm. We’re not going against them. We’re just standing.
Listen to the Full Interview on YouTube with Jamie
ICC President Jeff King recently sat down with Jamie Sanchez, owner of the Drip Café in Denver, Colorado. The café has been targeted by a local communist group and other radicals. Below are highlights from the conversation. To watch the full interview, click here.
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