Washed Up Coffee Is Making Detroit’s Cafe Scene a Little Less Precious
The queer-owned cafe earning national attention for its coffee, community and a deliberately anti-cool-kid approach
A piece of plywood balanced on two sawhorses was not Emily Potter and Amélie Boulanger's original vision for Washed Up Coffee. But when plans for their inaugural location fell through, they had a business to start and bills to pay. So they chopped up a piece of wood, loaded up their coffee gear and hit the streets of Detroit.
Not figuratively. For a time, they served coffee on whatever Detroit sidewalk the Michigan Department of Transportation wasn't patrolling. When they were asked to move along, customers helped them scamper to the next spot.
"The 50 people waiting in line for coffee would help us move our entire setup around the next corner. Humble beginnings," says Boulanger.
"Very humble beginnings," agrees Potter.
But then local bars and even other coffee shops offered Washed Up space for takeovers. Eventually, a mutual friend connected Potter and Boulanger with La Fonda Street Food in Detroit’s West Village. They were supposed to pop up there for four days.
They never left.
Washed Up began operating there in September 2025 and officially opened Nov. 1 after completing its licensing. Today, the coffee operation still shares space with the taco shop, something customers occasionally find surprising. One five-star reviewer summed up the unusual arrangement particularly well: “Love the coffee, smells like chili.”
“If a roaster isn’t paying those people correctly and respectfully to do the work that they’re doing so that it can end up in our cup at the end of the day, then what the hell is the point?"
— Emily Potter, co-owner of Washed Up Coffee in Detroit
The founders laugh at this. This might not have been exactly the plan, but the improvisational beginning says a lot about Washed Up. Potter and Boulanger didn’t have a gleaming new space or a pile of startup capital. At one point, they had $500 in the bank, donated by someone who believed in the business. The same week they opened, the water heater at home broke. They were exhausted, sick and unable to take a proper shower for days.
What they did have, they say, was “a fuck ton of heart,” years of coffee experience and a radical innovation idea that sounds almost comically simple: What if the coffee was excellent and people were genuinely happy you came in?
They say traditional independent coffee culture often asks customers to choose between kindness and quality. At one shop, a customer might encounter a wonderful barista and mediocre coffee. At another, the coffee might be excellent, but ordering it could require negotiating a gauntlet of pretension.
The approach has resonated far beyond their tiny counter. Washed Up has developed an intensely engaged social media following, and Potter and Boulanger, who are both romantic and business partners, recently appeared together on the cover of Barista Magazine.
"We've been joking with people that it's like our equivalent of Sports Illustrated," says Boulanger. "We got the centerfold, and we're beside ourselves. We're so excited. Where do we even go from here?"
The recognition is especially meaningful because they appeared not as a novelty or as part of a Pride-themed feature, but simply as two coffee professionals doing notable work. For two queer women who have spent years in an industry where women and nonbinary people have not always been treated as equals, this is no small accomplishment.
Their own staff has been almost entirely queer, not because they set out with a mandate to hire only queer people, but because those were the people in their existing professional and personal networks who were the right fit. What matters more is the environment they have deliberately created for them.
They describe how one newer employee regularly gets emotional talking about what it means to work somewhere they feel supported, not just by their bosses and coworkers, but by the customers coming through the door. Employees also know that if someone comes in and makes the space unsafe, they have the owners’ full support to handle it.
Ironically, “community” is one word you won’t see plastered all over Washed Up’s branding.
Potter and Boulanger have become suspicious of the word precisely because it is so often used as a marketing device. A coffee shop, they argue, shouldn’t have to announce that it creates community. It should demonstrate it.
Their preferred philosophy is simpler: “Don’t talk about it. Be about it.” This philosophy applies to their coffee choices as well.
Washed Up operates as a multi-roaster café, serving coffee roasted by several companies rather than roasting its own beans. At any given time, customers might find four to eight roasters from around the country and world represented on its shelves, through pour-overs or other offerings, giving Detroit coffee drinkers access to coffees they might otherwise never encounter.
Michigan’s enthusiasm for supporting local businesses is valuable, Potter and Boulanger explain, but coffee itself is inherently global. Nobody is growing coffee beans down the street in Detroit. So why pretend the world stops at the state line?
The couple chooses roasters based heavily on relationships, respect and transparency. They want to know not only who roasted a coffee, but where the green coffee came from, who grew it, how it was processed and how the people along that supply chain were treated and paid.
“If a roaster isn’t paying those people correctly and respectfully to do the work that they’re doing so that it can end up in our cup at the end of the day, then what the hell is the point?" says Potter.
That philosophy also shapes how they educate customers. Potter and Boulanger have both spent years as educators in the coffee industry, but they’re not interested in turning every latte into a lecture. Instead, they want customers to have opportunities to become curious — to meet a visiting roaster, try something unfamiliar or ask why a drink costs what it does.
Potter and Boulanger's romantic partnership predates Washed Up, but it was coffee that brought them together. They met at a latte art competition Potter was judging. Boulanger won. “Fair and square,” Potter interjects quickly.
"It was fair and square," agrees Boulanger.
"We had never met in person, and everyone just kept on saying, 'You need to meet Emily Potter. I just feel like you guys are gonna be best friends. There's just something about you two,'" says Boulanger. "And I'm like, 'Prove it,' basically, is how I live. Then we met, and I was like, 'Oh, no, this is gonna be more than friends; I can just tell.'"
They kept their relationship private for about a year. Both had established careers and influence in Michigan coffee, and there was also a child to consider. Neither was interested in casually disrupting their personal lives, their family or their professional community.
Once they knew the relationship was permanent, however, keeping their lives separate stopped making much sense. They got engaged earlier this year and plan to marry in 2027. Eventually, both left salaried jobs to work full time on Washed Up.
Friends repeatedly asked the obvious question: Aren’t you going to get sick of each other?
Their answer is a quick and definite no.
“We actually like spending time together,” Potter says. In fact, before they worked together full time, they would arrange their schedules so they could work separately in the same place.
Now they’re building the business side by side, and hoping Washed Up’s future includes a larger space of its own. They are not in search of something enormous. "Who wants to mop that much floor?" asks Boulanger.
But they do want to host visiting coffee professionals, events and informal educational experiences. For all the industry recognition, growth and ambition, Washed Up’s name remains a useful reminder not to take any of it too seriously.
Potter and Boulanger chose it because, after years in coffee, they wondered if they were already washed-up baristas. They refer to themselves as the “grandma and grandma” of the coffee world. But the joke also makes room for everybody else.
“You’re a washed-up comedian. You’re a washed-up basketball player. You’re a washed-up anything," Potter explains.
It’s anti-cool-kid branding for a deliberately anti-cool-kid coffee shop.
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