A Southside coffee shop is using National Coffee Day to introduce itself to the community and the strategy appears to be working.Roy Perez opened Drip and Sip five months ago, but he says the shop is more than just a place to g rab a cup of coffee."It's a Christian-based business. We started about 5 months ago and God is doing amazing things. You know, there's many coffee businesses around here, but right here we serve the Lord. We're saving souls, you know. It's one thing to serve coffee and to serve the food, but we're actually pouring into people and we're giving a place to go, a safe place like the church or the men's group, the women's group, so it's bigger than us," Perez said.To mark National Coffee Day, Perez rolled out special promotions to draw in new customers, including free coffee for the first 20 visitors."Today we're actually giving away coffees. The first 20 people giving them away, and then we got specials on the coffees. You buy one, you get like $3 off. You buy two, you get $4 off," Perez said.For a business open less than six months, Perez sees days like this as a key opportunity to expand his customer base."National Coffee Day is a big day for Corpus. And it's a big day for us. We try to meet, greet, give away free Bibles, try to get as much as we can on this day, and we know it's a big day. We're gonna get a lot more people, so we're ready for it," Perez said.The shop's appeal extends even to its own staff. Employee Eli Johnson said he chooses to spend his time off there."This is my favorite place to get coffee, not just because I work here, but it's just really good, really good fellowship. It's a great place to be," Johnson said.Perez said the atmosphere he has built is what sets Drip and Sip apart from other coffee shops in the area."We're not chasing the money, we're chasing the Lord, and to do that, you gotta be a, it's for the kingdom. So people when they come in here, they feel the love of Jesus, they feel the Holy Spirit in here. They can feel that, that's the way we greet them and we love on them, and that's what separates us," Perez said.This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.For the latest local news updates, click here, or download the KRIS 6 News App. ...read more read less