Our Story

Back in the early 1990s the owner and founder of Cedar River Coffee, Cindy Kunde Gale, was living in Santa Barbara, California, and had dreams of opening a coffee shop called “Cindy’s Joe Shop” just off of US 101. Unfortunately, due to one reason or another, the shop never came to fruition.

Jump forward to 2019, and Cindy is living happily with her husband, Andy Gale, and her two kids just outside of Cedar, Michigan in beautiful Leelanau County. The Chase Bank building just outside of downtown Cedar is planning to close its doors for good, and when her good friend Lisa Rossi comes out of nowhere and says that she just purchased it, it came as a huge surprise. Even more of a surprise came out of it when Lisa said that Cindy would be running a cafe out of half of it.

The both of them decided that now was a good chance to give Cindy’s dream another shot; Cedar has very little new businesses and there wasn’t another place to get a quality cup of joe for 18 miles in each direction. It was a perfect stop; just to the side of a major highway through Leelanau county, and on the way to most popular tourist destinations like Good Harbor Beach or Leland, not to mention a popular highway out of the county towards Traverse City.

In mid-2020, the shop entered the planning stage. Blueprints were drawn for the dissection of the old bank, and eventually (after many delays due to COVID-19) carried out. Food items were selected, interior decorations were pulled from old recycled materials, and compostable cups, lids, and utensils were selected by the leading distributor of compostable foodware in the county, no less than Cindy’s husband, Andy Gale of Bay Area Recycling for Charities. Not much later (in terms of the pandemic) on May 1st, 2021, the Cedar River Coffee Company opened it’s doors in their Grand Opening!

And today, the Cedar River Coffee Company sits at the heart of Cedar providing all the locals, and non-locals alike, with their morning joe and helping the residents give back to their planet one coffee bean at a time.