Ashley Rodriguez
Teresa Pelletier: ‘Everybody needs a space.’
“This building has been around forever, and many people who have been in Deerfield for a long time have fond memories,” says Teresa Pelletier, owner of Deerfield Coffeehouse, which opened in 2019 at 50 N. Main St. in the small town about 20 miles east of Madison.
She points to a distinct line in the ceiling. “We could never figure out what it was. A woman in her late 80s came in and said she remembered being a little kid, holding her mom’s hand and looking up at that spot in the ceiling. It was the entrance to the grocery store.”
The building has also been a pharmacy and a community center.
Pelletier opened the cafe after a family illness forced her to step back from her teaching career. Her son, who’d spent several years working at Beans n Cream coffeehouse in Sun Prairie, shared his knowledge with her as she went along.
In December 2022, she was awarded a grant from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago as part of its Accelerate program. “They were looking to support small businesses, with less than $1 million in revenue, established for at least a year, and with diverse ownership — minorities, women, LGBTQ,” Pelletier says. She used the $25,000 grant to replace siding and windows and address weather-worn architectural features. “I’m not sure the last time the building was touched,” she says.
"There was rotting plywood. The inside seal of the windows were broken — and they were so cloudy. You would wash them a million times, but they made it look like a run-down building,” says Pelletier. The results have “just uplifted the whole building. We've always had flowers and plants outside, but now I feel like they pop, and you see it more."
Two bulletin boards near the cafe’s entrance announce neighborhood events and promote local businesses. Deerfield’s On Board Roasting supplies the cafe with coffee, and visitors can buy Maria’s Pizza Sauce and Sundance Meadows Honey, both made in the Deerfield area.
The cafe’s art is from nearby students from elementary to high school. The Deerfield High School art club created a large mural at the back of the cafe, and a high schooler designed the shop’s new logo.
Pelletier especially wanted to make the space welcoming for kids and families. There's a children's play area in the back corner, and a weekly storytelling hour hosted by Carrie Ammerman (a former teacher affectionately known as Ms. Carrie) brings in dozens of young children and parents. “I wanted a space where kids could play, but parents could sit far away and still see them. It was my vision for the cafe to feel like a living room."
The coffeehouse is now a popular stop with bicyclists pedaling the nearby Glacial Drumlin State Trail. It’s also one of the few informal gathering spots in Deerfield for all ages “to sit and hang out,” says Pelletier. “Our mission is to be a community gathering space. I don’t care who you are — everybody needs a space. If people need to come in and just use the Wi-Fi, I’m okay with that. I want a place where people feel comfortable.”
