Category Archives: Customer Stories

Carlos Sims Jr and Kaitlyn Sims run Happy Home Coffee Roasters together in Des Moines, Iowa. They work in a detached garage on their home property, using both an MCR-3 and the MCR-500 that they started the company with several years ago. Setting the Scene Carlos Sims Jr came to specialty coffee from the hospitality… Read More

Rich Stone roasts on a manual MCR-2 in a roastery about twenty minutes outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. It’s a small-scale operation modeled like a large-scale operation, with a focus on efficiency and impact. Setting the Scene Rich Stone worked as an EMT in Knoxville, Tennessee until the stress and pressure of being a first responder… Read More

Lindsey Holland and Emma Soechting roast adjacent to CrossFit Nashville, a gym owned by  Emma’s husband, Preston, and his brother Dustin. The growth of both companies has been intertwined since the beginning; it offers a unique angle to the gym, and a low-cost space for the team to roast, and allows them to effectively dodge… Read More

The Cathedral Coffee roastery runs in Saint Helens, Oregon, midway between the two Cathedral Coffee cafes in Portland and Scappoose. In the front, Nate Dillon roasts on the manual MCR-3. In the back, cafe pastries are baked in the commercial kitchen. Setting the Scene Cathedral Coffee owner Austen Tanner started as a sanitation worker in… Read More

Reconstruction Coffee Roasters is a woman-owned and -operated company in Villa Ridge, Missouri. Master roaster Nickie Browne roasts in a commercial roastery outfitted with two Mill City Roasters, where manager Emily Browne handles sales and logistics. The company recently underwent some structural changes, with ownership changing hands and the Reconstruction Coffee Roasters trajectory now heading… Read More

Tyler Ellison is a deputy sheriff in Buena Vista, Colorado. He and his wife Amber also own and run Storyline Coffee Roasters out of a tiny home they call the Shop. They ship their coffee in refillable jars, putting the idea of returning for a second–or third, or fourth–order directly into their customers’ hands. Setting… Read More

Based in Stevensville, Maryland, Open Seas Coffee Roasters is a social-impact operation sending ten percent of its proceeds to provide rural communities with ceramic water purifiers.  Bryce Roszell is the owner and green buyer of Open Seas Coffee Roasters. Andrew Wackett is in charge of roasting and quality control; operations manager Hannah Wackett focuses on… Read More

CJ Porter Born roasts on an MCR-20 in a warehouse in St. Paul, Minnesota. As Director of Coffee for The Get Down Coffee Company, he’s in charge of supplying the fast-growing company with coffee, yes, but also the details that customers are now coming to expect on their bags of specialty coffee. While third-wave roasters… Read More

Christian Felipe Guzman Herrera roasts on an MCR-20. The machine lives in Pueblo Querido’s third location, a shop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn that opened just last year.  Christian is a night owl; waking up at four a.m. is often the hardest part of his day. But now, five years into running his trio of coffee shops,… Read More

Borah Dawson lives in Columbus, Ohio. She and Johnny, her husband of ten years, own a plot of land that includes their house and a secondary building, where the ARK 6 kilogram lives and works. Roasting on her home property suits Borah: there’s no lease payment, and her kids can come in to help whenever… Read More

Justin Hilligoss roasts on a MCR-3 just down the street from the Kennedy Space Center in Titusville, Florida, in a small cafe/roastery space next door to his wife’s boutique. In January 2023, the second location will open, complete with drive-thru, two thousand sq ft roasting warehouse, and three thousand sq ft cafe floor. Setting The… Read More

Blake and Haylee Rogers roast behind their gym, Relentless Fitness, in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. The building has a somewhat out-of-place chimney structure, which Blake and Haylee aimed to tear down until they installed their roaster there and found they could vent through it: a good metaphor for how roasting has puzzled into their lives. Setting the… Read More

Paul Olsen of Weird Brothers Coffee in Herndon, Virginia, roasts on a 20 Kilogram Mill City Roaster in a commercial warehouse a few blocks from the original coffee shop. Besides the roastery, Paul is in perpetual motion managing three retail Weird Brothers locations. Setting the Scene Kenny and Paul Olsen grew up in the Bay… Read More

Verso L’alto (to the heights, in Italian) takes its name from the motto of a prolific Italian mountaineer, Giorgio Frassati, who was a Catholic activist known to be a pillar of community and a quiet champion for underserved populations in Italy. For Samantha Flanders, the motto serves both as a call to her outdoorsy customers… Read More

Townsend, Tennessee is a town with four hundred and forty-four people and eight coffee shops. Just outside of town is Great Smoky National Park–it’s a pass-through for many tourists on their way to the great outdoors.  Little River Coffee Company, run by Ashley Patty, is a public roastery open Monday through Saturday. It’s a small… Read More

Setting the Scene Meg Le Vu drinks a lot of coffee. She operates a wedding photography business with her partner, Kevin; it’s a full-time job. In that role, she wears many hats: scheduler, manager, podcaster, photographer.  She started roasting her own coffee on his suggestion. Maybe, he asked her, it would be more cost-effective to… Read More

Mike and Shelly Lammon live in Apex, North Carolina, a town twenty minutes west of Raleigh. They both have day jobs; Shelly is CFO and COO of St. Mary’s School, and Mike is a software quality engineer at Red Hat Solutions.  They roast on a 10 kilogram in a rented 800 sq ft commercial space in… Read More

Neither Chis Christen nor Sam Brown can tell you exactly how they met each other. They’ve just known each other forever, running in their adjacent circles: barista/customer, friend/friend, DJ/musician. They’re both from Wisconsin, are food and beverage enthusiasts, and accomplished in the art of the specialty mocktail, which is a passion that led them to… Read More

Once a month, Tyler Campbell picks out three different coffees, focusing on options that highlight differences in beans, processing method, or roast profile. He brews them, and sets them out after coordinating with various coffee shops in Albany, Georgia to pick this month’s location. It’s free to go: there’s no charge for attendance, and he… Read More