Written By: Tony Santoro
It was 2012, and I was driving home from the long day as a 7th grade math teacher at Eastway Middle School. I was soaking up the stillness of the drive. I knew that when I walked in the door of our 1000 sqft home in Enderly Park I was going to be walking into a home with our then 1 year old and my pregnant wife (also exhausted from her long day as a 3rd grade teacher at Merry Oaks Elementary School). We would go through the evening ritual of dinner, clean up, bedtime routine, then couch!
As Becky got herself as comfortable as a pregnant, working mom could be, I on the other hand was headed to the third bedroom (soon to be nursery) where I kept my coffee roasting hobby. I would grab my Whirley Pop, table, camping stove, colander, and green coffee beans and head outside to the dark backyard with the motion sensor light. The light would turn on and id set up my “roastery” in the backyard, only to leave a trail of smoke down Effingham Rd that peaked all of our neighbors nose and mind. The motion light would turn off mid-roast and I would have to do a wild leg kick dance while continuing to keep my arm propelling the lever on the Whirley Pop, just to get the light back on. Honestly, one time the light came on and there was an Opossum about 10 feet behind me in the middle of my roast. I successfully kept my arm rotating the lever while hollering at the rabid animal to scare it away!
Fast forward through the next 9 years filled with sacrifice, hard work, sacrifice, community support, serving, and yes more sacrifice. We have learned so much and evolved as a company.
This season (2020-2021) has been so wild. In our home we have navigated this pandemic with 4 kids in 3 different learning situations, a coffee roasting company, and helping run Foster Village Charlotte. In our company we have been managing our wholesale operation, our cafe, our e-commerce operation, and our pandemic pivot Friday Home Delivery service.
Well let’s add one more ball to the juggling here, we are thrilled to share with you that in June 2021 we received our first PO from Harris Teeter. We worked so hard this summer to get the coffee produced and distributed across about 190 stores from Maryland to Georgia. We are humbled to be receiving emails and social media tags from customers across the east coast.
Know that whether you pick up a bag in our cafe, from one of our partner’s shelves, or in a Baltimore Harris Teeter that the coffee is ethically traded, small batch roasted, hand packed, and still fueling our local community! Sometimes growth can create some separation in a brand from the end consumer, but we are here in Enderly Park operating as a small business with a handful of amazing employees, serving our neighbors, and seeking to lift others up. That is what we do and will continue to do.
Much Love,
Tony
