The following is an extended version of the article that appears in our September 2025 issue.
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Ella Floyd and John Freyer with the Free Naloxone and Free Hot Coffee bikes on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University (Photo by Jay Paul)
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The Free Hot Coffee and Free Naloxone bikes at the Compass at VCU (Photo by Mino.Photos)
Over a decade ago, John Freyer attended a 12-step meeting that changed his life. The associate professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts had no idea it would lead him to fuel a larger mission: supporting recovery, one cup at a time. In 2016, Freyer partnered with the university’s Rams in Recovery program to introduce Recovery Roast. With Freyer, Outreach Specialist Ella Floyd and other staff serving free coffee on campus from bicycles, the project aims to spark conversation surrounding sobriety. They also work with coffee roasters to create custom blends. Since launching in Richmond, there have been 10 editions of Recovery Roast, and the coffee bikes have hit the streets at universities across the state and around the world.
Richmond magazine: Can you tell us about the origin of the Recovery Roast project?
Parousia Coffee’s upcoming edition of Recovery Roast (Photo courtesy John Freyer)
John Freyer: On May 21, 2013, I walked into the basement of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church for a noon meeting, and I was handed the worst cup of coffee. I thought, “How am I going to spend the rest of my life going to these meetings if it’s bad?” So, I volunteered to make the coffee and got a 5-pound bag from Costco. I made one of those big urns, and an old-timer came in and said, “Who the f--- made the coffee?” and then dumped it and made a fresh batch. I learned that I didn’t know everything.
A couple years into sobriety, I was an advisor to Rams in Recovery and was plugged into a larger recovery community. I was going to Lamplighter Coffee Roasters all the time and told them about it. We hosted a coffee tasting with a bunch of people in recovery. From that experience and feedback, we created the first edition of Recovery Roast. We started serving it at the Rams in Recovery Clubhouse and on campus aboard the Free Hot Coffee Bike.
RM: How did you decide on the free hot coffee bike?
Freyer: Once we had the coffee, we thought, what were we going to do with it? At the time, Richmond Bicycle Studio was next to Lamplighter. The first one was made from cedar, a material that I use in my art practice. It’s rough on one side and smooth on the inside, and I use that as a metaphor for people in recovery.
We make pour-over coffee, which takes three to five minutes to make, on the bike and serve Recovery Roast coffee on it. We hand them the hand grinder so they can grind it for the next person, and then we make the cup.
RM: How do people respond to the coffee cart when they see it?
Ella Floyd: People love free things, so people are generally very interested. They come over and they say, “What is this? Is it free?” And I say, “Yes, it really is free,” and it’s all just a conversation. A lot of people either have a relationship with someone in recovery, or they’re in recovery themselves. And a lot of people are very interested in learning more, and trying to connect. And then we plug them to the other bikes, like the [opioid overdose reversal medication] Narcan training or the Rams in Recovery Clubhouse. We’re a bridge connecting them to other resources.
RM: Who is the current roaster and what is the goal moving forward?
Freyer: We’ve worked with Lamplighter Coffee Roasters and Afterglow Coffee Cooperative in the past. We’re currently working with Parousia Coffee. This month, we will host a tasting event and get feedback from the recovery community to make the next blend.
I’m excited about figuring out how to structure Recovery Roast so that I can take this thing to a coffee roaster and say that this is is the model we’re using. We’re making sure that if wholesale pricing goes to restaurants, that there is money to go to the scholarship fund for Rams in Recovery. The coffee bike is always free and built on the idea of exchange that comes out of 12-step stuff, which is what’s freely given is freely received. Any proceeds that come back have to go directly to support the recovery community.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
