For more than two weeks now, Kenyan-born businesswoman, Priscah Norton, has been living her dream of running a coffee shop in the US.
She set up the business, Coffee4All Bistro Cafe, at the Stoughton Wellness and Athletic Center on Monday, March 28, with the aim of making it stand out from the fold.
Her rise to the top, as per her interview with the Stoughton Courier Hub, was not a walk in the park, noting that she received the uplift from her then co-workers.
Born and raised in Kenya, Norton moved to the United States over 20 years ago after meeting her husband, who was attached to the US Army at the time.
When she arrived in the US, she enrolled at a college to study healthcare administration and secured a job at Meriter Hospital.
While at the facility, she began baking her Kenyan delicacies including samosa's and doughnuts which she would share with her co-workers. The team saw her passion for baking and challenged her to do it full-time. She later left her hospital job.
She started the arduous journey of setting up a coffee shop which includes securing funding, scouting for location and hiring competent staff.
She had planned to open the shop in October 2021 but the complexities in setting up led her to postpone it until the tail-end of March 2022.
These complexities included hiring a competent team, setting up the furniture (well beyond the previous coffee shop that occupied the space but closed a few years ago), as well as the paint job.
“We changed almost everything. It’s going to be a little different for those who used to come in, there’s more seating than before. We just want to have a cozy spot,” she stated in an interview.
She further explained that her spot will offer coffee, tea and smoothies as well as snacks such as mahamri and samosa's inspired by her Kenyan background.
Initially, the undertaking was supposed to be a joint effort between her and her husband but he suffered Scleroderma which affects the skin and organs making it hard to move around.
"I had to suppress my grief and push on to see the cafe open, for l made a promise to him to see what we both wanted come true fulfilled.
"We had promised each other not to give up on what we had been doing. I had to dry my tears fast and continue to pursue this journey alone. l have to heal and see what we started become fulfilled," she noted.
