Coffee and F-bombs

Go ahead. Drop an F-bomb or two. Swearing is allowed. In fact, it’s encouraged.

First Avenue Coffee is starting an early morning meet-up for women modeled after the F-Bomb Breakfast Club in Seattle.

Owner Deb Di Bernardo attended a couple of meetings of the Seattle group earlier this year, bringing F-Bomb bottled cold-brew coffee. And she was impressed.

Members – women business owners, entrepreneurs, founders or organizations or companies – would “drop F-bombs, very casually, not in anger,” Di Bernardo said. “They’re driven women, and they get together for mentoring, guiding, suggestions. They’re women who don’t hesitate to drop F-bombs – or need to learn not to hesitate to drop F-bombs.”

The website for the West Side group describes the 1,700-plus member club as “not your average support group. … We are unapologetic badasses who show up for each other online and IRL, making connections, referrals, deals. We share leads, resources, opportunities. We laugh, we cry, we talk like truckers. Existing power networks weren’t built for us, so we built our own.”

Di Bernardo wants to do the same here. “I’ve been referred to as that woman coffee roaster with a foul mouth,” she said. “I don’t think of myself that way.”

So she’s launching her own version of the F-Bomb Breakfast Club in Spokane. The plan is to meet at First Avenue Coffee at 7 a.m. on the first Friday of the month, beginning Oct. 5.

“We don’t want to make it difficult, just on your way to work,” said Di Bernardo, who will provide free drip coffee. “It’s drop by, come by, let’s creative a collective voice of sharing and support. It’s bringing women together for a voice.”

And it’s OK if that voice includes a few F-words. If that offends folks’ delicate sensibilities, Di Bernardo said, well, “people who are really conservative don’t need to come.”

First Avenue Coffee is at 1011 W. First Ave. Call (509) 201-7091. On the web: 1stavecoffee.com.