KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Coffee lovers are loyal -- and it's that loyalty that breeds success. The Roasterie is celebrating 15-years of success in bringing great coffee from around the world to Kansas City.
“We buy the best coffee we can find in the world,” says Founder Danny O’Neill. “We don't just say that, we do it.” O'Neill was first exposed to coffee as a foreign exchange student in Costa Rica.
“So 11 of us piled in a Toyota jeep and went up to the side of the Blast Volcano,” O’Neill explains. “I went coffee picking for two and a half weeks, and just absolutely fell in love with it.”
Like many entrepreneurs, O’Neill started the company in his basement. Today, their landmark building just off of Southwest Boulevard spreads the sweet smell of success for miles. O'Neill says the success of Roasterie coffee comes from three things: their signature air roasting process, their freshness, and getting their product to consumers as fast as they can.
“We roast it the best way known to man,” O’Neill says. “That's air roasting, which makes a much cleaner, smoother, mellower, cup of coffee.”
The Roasterie started by selling to coffee houses and local restaurants like André's and Classic Cup. Soon, their bags of beans landed on grocery store shelves.
“That made a huge difference that created a pull through the marketplace,” O’Neill says. “Our coffee was being pulled through the stores and it sold really well.”
In 2005, The Roasterie ventured into retail, serving up their coffee fresh with a coffee house in Brookside. The move followed a philosophy that might go against others, but it works for them.
“Just make something, make a lot of it, make it cheap, and just try to get those 300-million people to buy what you have. I've always taken the other approach -- find out what they want, and give it to them and make it easy.”
