Everybody knows Creative Mike. Fewer people know the reason your Dope Coffee is non-dairy — the reason it carries turmeric and marshmallow root instead of syrup and filler, the reason there’s a coffee scrub for your skin at all. Her name is Chel Loyd: Mike’s co-founder, his wife, and the product conscience of the whole company. A registered dietitian.
Out of Necessity
Chel and Mike met at Wake Forest. He went to the Marines; she became a dietitian. Dope didn’t start as a brand play. “We started the company out of necessity,” she says. “There was no great coffee in our town.” That was Cafe Solar, 2015, near Camp Lejeune. By 2019 it was Dope Coffee — and the bet wasn’t small.
We emptied our bank account, sold our home, and relocated our family.
— Chel Loyd
We Don’t Push Crap and Poison
Here’s where the dietitian shows up. Every Dope drink is non-dairy by default — not as a trend but as a clinical choice, for digestion and for allergens. The lattes carry turmeric, marshmallow root, collagen: functions, not just flavors. Designing a coffee menu for a culture meant unlearning the rules. “I had to break down every stereotype I had about coffee — how to make it, how it’s supposed to taste — and take it back to cooking knowledge and my own palate.” The recipes on this blog — the pour-over, the cold brew, the build method — are hers.
We don’t push crap and poison in our community.
— Chel Loyd, RD
Skin and Soul
She didn’t stop at the cup. As Chief Product Officer she built the Skin & Body line in house — the coffee scrub and the soaps. The “Original Man” bar she traces to 10,000 BC, “how the original man cleaned himself,” formulated for melanated skin and keratosis pilaris. Underneath the whole line is one instruction.
Be kind to yourself.
— Chel Loyd
An Antidepressant
Ask her what the company has been and she doesn’t reach for a number. “Dope Coffee has been therapeutic — an antidepressant. A platform for our creativity, a place to feel comfortable in our own skin.” She’s honest about the cost: “Being a successful entrepreneur means having to deal with all of your insecurities. It unveils all your weaknesses.” And the reason, plainly: “I want Dope Coffee to be a voice and platform for Black culture and a catalyst for change.”
Mike is the voice. Chel is the formula. Every cup that’s easy on your stomach, every bar of soap, every recipe that does something for your body instead of to it — that’s her hand. No crap. No poison. Made of real things, on purpose.
Coffee, culture, hip-hop — if you’re in it, we want your story. Tell us, and we’ll put you on.
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