About
Our Story Starts With a Building Worth Saving
Jesse and Tori Rodriguez live right here in Dorr with their three boys. Long before there was a coffee shop, there was a foreclosed house they bought, gutted, and fell in love with restoring. This was the start of years working with their hands, learning what makes a space worth keeping and what it takes to bring one back.
When they walked into a 1909 schoolhouse on 18th Street, they saw what most people would have missed: original woodwork under decades of wear, tall windows worth uncovering, high ceilings that had watched acentury of this community pass through. They restored it the way they had learned to restore anythingworth restoring — carefully, honestly, and with a goal of preserving rather than replacing.
The District Coffee is what that schoolhouse became.
The Values That Shape Them
Integrity. Doing the right thing even when nobody’s watching and the easy route is right there. Their word means something.
Excellence. Precision and care in the work — whether that’s a restored window casing or a shot of espresso.
Joy. Loving the work itself, not just the result.
Growth. Staying students of the craft. Always learning, always better than yesterday.
Craftsmanship. Taking pride in the work of your hands, because it always shows.
Embracing the challenge. Leaning in when things get hard instead of stepping back.
Underneath all of it: faith as the foundation, and people over profit. Jesse and Tori are not the family posting perfectly timed content or filming polished videos. They’re the family that pours everything into the work and makes sure you are glad you came.
Why Our Baristas Keep Training
Premium coffee isn’t just a tagline at The District — it’s a standard, and standards require practice. House-made syrups, locally sourced honey and maple, ceremonial-grade matcha, rotating single-origin pour-overs that change with the season. None of that survives a barista going through the motions.
Our team trains continuously. New baristas learn through one-on-one onboarding, and even our most experienced team members keep sharpening their skills through ongoing training.
The reason is simple. A cortado, a flat white, and a vanilla latte are three different crafts, and your usual order should taste the same on a Tuesday in February as it did in July. That kind of consistency isn't luck. It’s coaching, repetition, and a team that actually cares whether the shot ran long.
We strive to make the best drinks every time. That takes people who are continually learning.
The Same Purpose, a Different Century
Generations of Dorr kids filled this building with noise and energy. Today neighbors fill it with conversation, laptops, first dates, playdates, and long-overdue catch-ups. The faces changed. The purpose didn’t.
Coffee is really just the excuse to bring people together.
People Focused.
Community Driven.
Welcome to The District.
