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 GREENVILLE, S.C. -- An entrepreneurial spirit is brewing at Greenville High School after a student decided to open his own coffee shop on the campus. Jarvis Rogers said he saw the need for the coffee shop and, in just two weeks, built the Ground Floor.
"Ever since I was a little kid I loved coffee, and I got the idea to start the coffee shop," Rogers said.
Rogers is in Special Ed, Greenville High School's occupational diploma program. He said he's seeing his work really pay off. The full-service Ground Floor shop is the most popular spot in the Greenville High School cafeteria. "The corporate sponsor is Liquid Highway, who donated the cash registers and all of the coffee-making equipment," Beth Brotherton said. "And, get this, in their first week in business, this was the highest-grossing Liquid Highway location in Greenville." In just two weeks, students developed a business plan, did the research, got a sponsor and opened up shop. Now they're learning job skills, how to make change, measure ingredients and follow a budget -- all practical work for seeing jobs in food service. It's also benefitting the consumer science department -- what used to be known as "home economics." "Right now we only do cookies," student Ted Angermeier said. "We have started trying out pastries and cinnamon rolls and other things." It's also given class attendance a caffeine boost. "We actually had students who dropped out of school, stopped coming, got involved and now they don't miss a day," assistant principal Mike Noel said.
The Ground Flood is open before school and during lunch hour. It gave $2,000 to charity after just four days of business.
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