This September, B3 Coffee will collaborate with Innovate Carolina Junction to open a new location on East Rosemary Street for entrepreneurs, community members and students.
Once the Junction officially opens next month, B3 will operate a coffee bar for events as a part of a phased approach in the new space. The organization will also have a full-service coffee bar at the Junction from Sept. 18-22 and Oct. 16-20.
The agreement between the two organizations is that — as long as this location is financially viable and has enough traffic to sustain B3 — it will be permanent, Jacklyn Boheler, co-founder and executive director of B3, said.
B3 — which stands for being, belonging and becoming — started as a partnership with the Best Buddies student organization at UNC in January 2020.
In the span of three years, it has evolved into a nonprofit coffee business, and Boheler said they have employees with and without disabilities working together in non-hierarchical ways.
Boheler said she feels like inclusion initiatives often exclude intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“We're really trying to push past the charity mindset when it comes to disability and focus on the disability justice framework to really embed disability within the broader diversity, equity and inclusion movement," Boheler said. “B3 is coffee, but it's so much more.”
The organization was formed by Boheler and two other former UNC graduate students, Greg Boheler and Hannah Steen. Since its creation, B3 has hosted pop-ups across the Triangle and in July 2022, it opened its first permanent kiosk in the Chapel Hill Public Library.
Now, the B3 team hopes that Innovate Carolina Junction will host their next permanent location, Boheler said.
